WWF: Philippines dealers to cut reef fish exports

Yahoo News 26 Feb 09;

MANILA (AFP) – Live fish traders in the Philippines have accepted a quota plan designed to cut the coral trout catch and prevent a collapse of the reef fish industry, the World Wildlife Fund said Thursday.

The agreement, signed on the western island of Palawan last week, would cut the live reef fish catch by 27 per cent, or around 200 tonnes a year.

It aims to arrest the serious decline in the resource, which the international conservation group estimates could disappear by 2020 if current fishing practices and international demand continue.

The Philippines is the biggest supplier of coral trout, the most highly valued live reef fish, to seafood hubs such as Hong Kong and China.

Palawan supplies around 60 per cent of all Philippines fish, it added.

"The trade in live reef fish in Palawan supports entire communities, many of which have few alternatives for livelihoods," said Geoffrey Muldoon of the fund's Coral Triangle Programme.

"Under a business-as-usual scenario, Palawan's live reef fish trade would become economically unviable in about a decade," he said.

"We hope that we can build on the new quota system and establish a comprehensive management plan that will protect communities from this significant food security threat."

The Palawan live reef fish trade has supplied business lunches and expensive banquets in Asia since the 1980s, bringing more than 100 million dollars a year to fishermen who often use cyanide or explosives to stun the fish.

The WWF said a survey last year found that 20 of 161 species of grouper, a reef fish that makes up a large part of the Coral Triangle's live fish trade, were threatened with extinction.

The 20 include the squaretail coral grouper and humpback grouper, which are a popular luxury live food in Asian seafood restaurants.

The Philippines is considered to be the centre of the Coral Triangle, a region between the Pacific and Indian Oceans that harbours 75 percent of all known species of plants and animals that thrive among coral reefs.

Lapu-Lapu supply fast running out
By Katherine G. Adraneda, philstar.com 1 Mar 09;

MANILA, Philippines - The succulent Lapu-Lapu has always been part of the menu. So, what will a Chinese restaurant be without it?

Global conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) held a summit recently in Palawan to seek measures that will avert an impending shortage in the supply of Lapu-Lapu.

WWF noted that 40 years of unregulated cyanide and dynamite fishing plus a rising trend to target vulnerable spawning areas of Lapu-Lapu, especially in Palawan, “is threatening wild stocks with total collapse.”

“Unless we preserve remaining wild stocks today, Palawan’s fisheries will not be able to replenish and will collapse by 2020,” said Dr. Geoffrey Muldoon, live reef fish strategy leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program.

Palawan and its territorial waters host some of the most productive yet exploited fisheries on earth, according to WWF.

The Lapu-Lapu (name of Cebu’s legendary chieftain) or grouper is Asia’s most marketable reef fish, fetching up to P6, 000 per piece in Hong Kong and Singapore, WWF said.

Since the 1970s, the group said live grouper, snapper and wrasse have been gracing the restaurants of many Asian nation especially inHong Kong, Singapore and mainland China, where it is believed that fish kept alive just moments before cooking is not only more savory but will lead to a longer life.

WWF noted that Palawan’s waters supply 50 to 55 percent of the country’s seafood requirement, generating an income of over P4 billion for the local economy each year.

“The annual grouper yield is immense. Last year, local fishermen reeled in over 700 metric tons to bring in P1.26 billion in revenues. Unfortunately, we’ve estimated the sustainable yield to be no more than 140 metric tons, meaning the yearly take is five times more than what can be harvested,” Muldoon explained.

During the one-day sustainable live reef summit the other day, WWF, BFAR and PCSD helped locals to develop solutions to forestall the looming crisis in Lapu-Lapu supply. These measures include practical accreditation processes, quotas, levies, surveillance and monitoring systems.

WWF said that, at present, there is no comprehensive scheme to regulate the live reef fish trade, which supports over a hundred thousand people in Palawan alone, with most having no alternative livelihood.

“Local communities are delivery systems for conservation. The stakeholders of Palawan have created a watershed moment. The agreements arrived at… have been based on a recognition of the realities of over fishing, human footprint and climate change. In a sense, this is true transformation,” said Lorenzo Tan, vice-chairman and CEO of WWF.

The live reef fish summit has brought together local government units, fishermen and traders to discuss sustainable management strategies for their fisheries, aiming to establish synergy between traders from other live reef fish hubs such as Malaysia and Indonesia, the WWF said.

Gregg Yan, media and communications officer of WWF-Philippines, said the most significant outcome of the summit was a pledge to reduce the annual grouper quota by 25 percent to 516 metric tons per annum, or roughly a million half-kilogram Lapu-Lapu.

Yan said a crucial stakeholder alliance was forged between fish traders and local governments to work as one in implementing this quota system and other sustainability initiatives.

“WWF believes in the synergy of environmentalism and economics. Our goal is to work with local communities to export the first batch of sustainably caught wild grouper by June of 2010. Once successful, we can replicate the process in other areas,” Muldoon pointed out.

Citing surveys, Muldoon said that 60 percent of all groupers taken from Palawan’s reefs are juveniles, an indication that adults have been heavily depleted and that as a whole, the ecosystem has been “badly over fished.”

WWF said less than five percent of Philippine-caught groupers are sold locally, as these were often rejected by foreign importers.

Groupers are mostly solitary–often lethargic looking–reef predators from the family Serranidae, according to the world conservation organization.

There are 161 species of groupers, with 20 recently classified by the IUCN as threatened with extinction.

WWF said all groupers are captured for either the aquarium or food trade.

WWF also said that majority of groupers sourced locally are taken from the wild, as current technology to breed and raise high-value marine fish such as Leopard Trout and the CITES-protected Humphead Wrasse is still several years off.

Endangered groupers to stay off dining plates under Philippines deal
WWF 6 Mar 09;

Filipino fishermen and fish traders have signed off on a plan to save grouper stocks in the Coral Triangle by keeping more than a million kilos of the endangered fish off restaurant dinner plates annually across Asia.

The grouper is Asia’s most in-demand reef fish and considered a delicacy with high-end diners in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

But decades of highly unregulated cyanide and dynamite fishing, and a rising trend of targeting vulnerable spawning areas to feed the live reef fish trade, are threatening wild grouper stocks in the Philippines province of Palawan with total collapse.

The IUCN recently assessed all 161 species of grouper and categorized twenty grouper species as threatened with extinction, including the squaretail coral grouper and humpback grouper, which are found throughout the Coral Triangle and are a popular luxury live food in Asian seafood restaurants.

To help avoid the total collapse of grouper stocks near the Philippines island of Palawan, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, the Palawan Provincial Government and WWF staged a sustainable live reef fish summit in Palawan last month to help locals develop their own solutions – including practical accreditation processes, quotas, levies, surveillance and monitoring systems.

Palawan and its territorial waters host some of the most productive yet exploited fishing grounds in the Coral Triangle – the world's centre for marine biodiversity. Groupers make up a large part of the Coral Triangle’s live fish trade.

At the summit held at Palawan’s State University, fishermen and traders pledged to reduce Palawan's annual grouper haul by more than 25 percent. They agreed to reduce the annual catch of 700 metric tons to 516 metric tons – keeping roughly 1.5 million kilograms of Coral Triangle grouper in the ocean every year.

Beginning in the 1970s, exports of live grouper, snapper and wrasse from the region have made their way to the kitchens and live fish tanks across Asia – particularly Hong Kong, Singapore and mainland China.

The Philippines is the biggest supplier of the most high value live reef fish, coral trout, to those Asian seafood hubs, and the province of Palawan supplies around 60 per cent of all Philippines fish. The highly unregulated live reef fish business is estimated to bring in more than $US100 million dollars annually to fishing communities on the island, making the recent agreement that much more of a watershed moment in conservation.

“The annual grouper yield is immense – last year local fishermen reeled in over 700 metric tones. Unfortunately we’ve estimated the sustainable yield to be no more than 140 metric tonnes – meaning the yearly take is five times more than what can be harvested,” said Dr. Geoffrey Muldoon, Live Reef Fish Strategy Leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program.

Fishermen and fish traders made the agreement during the Live Reef Fish Summit held at Palawan State University on 23 Feb. The summit was organized by the PCSD, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the Palawan Provincial Government and WWF to unify local government units, fishermen and traders in discussing sustainable management practices for their fishing trade.

“Local communities are delivery systems for conservation. The stakeholders of Palawan have created a watershed moment. The agreements arrived at today have been based on a recognition of the realities of overfishing, human footprint and climate change. In a sense, this is true transformation,” WWF Vice-Chairman and CEO Lory Tan said.

The decision comes as leaders of the six nations that make up the Coral Triangle – Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste – prepare to gather in Manado, Indonesia in May for the World Oceans Conference where they will announce a comprehensive set of actions to protect ecosystems and food security in the region.

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