THE Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) is now ready to roll out the country’s first-ever national sardine management plan (NSMP) after the blueprint was recently signed by Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar.
The NSMP seeks to put in place a system for “sustainable use and management” of sardines, one of the country’s most important fisheries resources, according to BFAR.
The blueprint was a product of a multisector collaboration and initiatives that aims to holistically respond and offer measures to the challenges of the sardines industry, BFAR added.
“Sardines, which are among the most commercially important fish species and one of the most staple protein sources for Filipinos, have since been plagued by many challenges for many years,” it said in a statement.
“Decreasing catch rates, increasing juvenile catch, decreasing productivity, postharvest losses, illegal fishing, and poverty among sardine fisherfolk are just a few of the challenges that hound the industry,” it added. Through the National Sardine Management Plan, such can be addressed, it said.
BFAR said the national plan has three goals: improve science-based indicators for sustainability of fish stocks; reduction of postharvest losses to improve income and benefits of sardine fisherfolk communities; and strengthened science-based management for sustainable sardine fisheries by setting Harvest Control Rules and developing sound data platform.
“We are optimistic that our vision of a sustainably and equitably shared sardine fishery that contributes greatly to food security and increased income for our sardine fishers will soon be realized through this plan,” Department of Agriculture-BFAR National Director Eduardo Gongona said.
In April, international nongovernment organization Oceana urged the government to adopt the overdue national management plan that would conserve and protect the fish species as Filipinos scramble to stock up on canned sardines during the lockdown.
“Fisheries Management Plans are an excellent way to organize the existing biological, economic, and social information about sardines. It is also an ideal platform to make sure that all present and future governance and management mechanisms are coordinated, and part of a cohesive framework, especially as we now have the Fisheries Management Area system,” Oceana Vice President Gloria Estenzo Ramos said.
“It also provides opportunities to set realistic goals for a fishery. Those who participate in a fishery can decide, for example, that their medium-term objective is to recover the population of the target species, maintain employment structure in a community, or achieve the maximum economic yield,” Ramos added.
Citing a 2017 Social Weather Stations survey, Oceana said 70 percent of Filipinos eat fish or any seafood for five days in a month; three out of 10 (30 percent) Filipino adults nationwide ate sardinas/silinyasi/tunsoy each month.
“The sardine industry is also an important economic driver providing jobs and livelihood, for small scale entrepreneurs in the dried and smoked sector, and for factory workers in the canning and bottling sectors. Ecologically, sardines are important part of the marine food chain being a major forage species of many predatory fish species, mammals, and cetaceans,” Oceana said.
“Given the significance of sardines to the Filipinos, it is imperative that these resources should be sufficiently managed for its harvests to be forever,” it added.
Image credits: Gregg Yan
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