Tuna in danger of overfishing

Believe it or not, success is endangering the continued existence of the tuna, the fish that has brought so much wealth to fishermen, traders and canning companies in the Socsargen (South Cotabato, Sarangani, General Santos) region. There is a scramble to catch the highly valued fish by deep sea fishing companies from 35 countries that there is now a danger of overfishing.

The tuna may go the way of the whales and the American bison that were hunted and caught almost to extinction. Whales were so plentiful in the oceans during the days of Moby Dick that whaling countries floated on the oil from them. And the bison roamed the American prairies by the millions that the American Indians and the builders of the American railroads subsisted chiefly on its meat. Now there are only a few herds of bison in protected parks and some private ranches. And whaling is now limited by an international whaling organization. The same may happen to the tuna.

The tuna is one of the most highly priced fish in the world. It is exported by the Philippines to many other countries, especially to Japan, where it is a delicacy. A number of canning factories have sprung up in Mindanao just to can them. And fishing boats from as far north as Palawan and Mindoro go to Gensan to sell their tuna catch and from where the tuna goes to the canning factories and exported to other countries.

Australia has started to raise the blue-fin tuna, the highest priced of them all, in lakes and ponds, but the process is much more expensive than catching them in the wild that other countries have not followed Australia’s example.

But the greed of businessmen knows no bounds. They continue to catch tuna in such great numbers that the tuna population is being depleted rapidly. There is now an international organization that controls tuna fishing worldwide. It has already banned tuna fishing in the seas around Palau, the Philippines being one of those banned, to allow the tuna population to recover.

The irony of the Philippines is that its waters are the spawning grounds of the tuna. So the international organization has banned Filipino fishermen from catching tuna in Philippine waters. The logic is simple: If you catch the spawning tuna or the adolescent tuna, there will soon be a shortage of new tuna to replace the adult ones that have been caught. So tuna fishing has been banned in the Philippines.

So Filipino fishermen go to the high seas around Palau to catch adult tuna. But as I said earlier, fishing in that area has been banned for the Philippines and a few other countries. So where will the Filipinos go to catch tuna?

At a conference of the international tuna organization (composed of 35 tuna fishing nations and 10 observers) in Guam, the Philippine delegation led by Secretary Lualhati Antonino of the Mindanao Development Authority explained the Philippine quandary: It is banned from catching tuna in its own waters but also banned from fishing in the high seas. Antonino and representatives of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and the Socsargen fishing association were at the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel last Monday to explain the situation.

The international tuna organization, they said, understood our plight and lifted the ban on us to fish in the high seas near Palau. Still, subsistence fishermen who cannot go as far as Palau, fish in Philippine waters and catch the small adolescent tuna. When you see a small tuna being sold in the market, that was probably caught here, where fishing for tuna is banned.

What about other fish, such as sardines and galunggong, which have been overfished? Recently, the canning factories in Mindanao were forced to stop production because of a shortage of sardines. And the lowly galunggong, the poor man’s fish, is now being imported because local supplies are now inadequate.

The sardine and galunggong populations have recovered because of the temporary ban on them, the BFAR said. The supply is now adequate.

What about aquaculture? The supply of milkfish (bangus) and tilapia is plentiful because they are now raised in fishpens, fish cages, and ponds. Can’t the same thing be done for other species of fish?

Efforts in that direction are being done now, the BFAR said. Prawns and crabs are now being cultured. Efforts to do the same thing to lapu-lapu and other highly valued fish are going on. In fact, the Philippines ranks among the top countries engaged in aquaculture, the BFAR said.

The problem now is the lack of ponds. Many of the fishponds in the cities of Malabon and Navotas and the provinces of Bulacan and Pampanga have been reclaimed and turned into subdivisions. The supply of bamboo for fishpens and fish cages is running out. The bamboo groves are being overharvested and nobody is planting new ones. The mangrove forests, the spawning grounds of fish and crustaceans, are being cleared. Many of the rivers are so polluted that no fish can survive in them. So where do we go from here?

Is there not a danger of overfishing our waters? the BFAR was asked.

Not if we practice sustainable fishing.

Sustainable fishing means catching only the adult fish and throwing back the small ones so they can grow bigger and spawn.

Sustainability. Isn’t that the same term used for logging years ago? Only the big trees would be harvested and let the small ones grow bigger. Now most of our mountains are bald. There are no more forests left. What happened to sustainable logging? The same may happen to “sustainable fishing.”