Live fish trade declining in Palawan due to unregulated fishing

CAIRNS, Australia – Once a thriving industry, the trade in live food fish from Palawan has declined due to intensive harvesting that does not allow some species to repopulate the reefs, according to marine conservation experts.

 

“It’s not a closed cycle. They get the juveniles from the wild, let them grow to full size, and then sell them. They don’t allow the fish to reproduce,” said Theresa Mundita Lim, director of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.

 

The decrease in live fish harvests is reflected in the drop in fisheries contribution from 4.4% to 3.84% of the Philippines’ gross domestic product in 2011, Lim said at a coral reef symposium here that ended Friday.

 

She said municipal fish catch has shifted to small-sized species that have a low market value. 

 

Aquaculture, on the other hand, is growing rapidly at 10 per cent per year.

 

In Hong Kong, the main destination of live reef food fish such as groupers (lapu-lapu) and wrasse (mameng), annual trade peaked at 30 million tons and was worth $1 billion, according to Yvonne Sadovy, Professor of Marine Science at the University of Hong Kong.

 

“It is easy in Hong Kong to see large tanks of reef fish,” she said. “Hong Kong is the centre of this type of trade.”

 

The leopard coral grouper

 

Sadovy cited the fate of the much sought-after leopard coral grouper in Busuanga island in northern Palawan as an example of the problems facing the waning industry. She said traders are now seeking the prized species further south in the resource-rich province because of lower catch rates and smaller fish in the north.

 

But even in southern Palawan, in the island town of Balabac, research among 1,000 fishing households showed that many fishers have observed a decrease in their catch of live fish from coral reefs, which is their main habitat.

 

Three out of four fishers interviewed last year reported smaller sizes and volume of the leopard coral grouper, reported marine scientist Michael Fabinyi, who conducted the study.

 

“The perceptions of fishers themselves ... give strong indications that the trade here is unsustainable and in relative decline,” he wrote in his paper, which he shared at a news conference here.

 

The prospect of earning the equivalent of one month’s wages with just one leopard coral grouper, which sells for up to $200 in a Beijing restaurant, outweighs environmental considerations for most fishers, Fabinyi said.

 

“There is recognition among villagers that catching these fish on such a large scale is not sustainable, but those concerns are dwarfed by their aspirations for a better quality of life,” he said.

 

He said prices for the most valued species, the Napoleon or humphead wrasse, reach up to $400 a kilo in China. 

 

The humphead wrasse was included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of threatened species in 2004, the first commercial reef food fish on the list, due to heavy fishing pressure for juvenile fish sought in the market that have not had time to reproduce, Sadovy said.

 

Sustainable capture

 

Trends show that the popularity of reef fish in luxury restaurants in China is likely to increase significantly in the near future due to the economic boom there, posing even greater dangers for favored species in coral reefs, she said.

 

Sadovy said one solution for live fish traders is to discourage fishers from catching target species during their spawning period so that their populations can thrive.

 

“Aggregations are the ‘capital’ in the bank, the young they produce and populate the reefs are the ‘interest’ to live off,” she said.

 

The University of Hong Kong is currently supporting a project in Palawan that promotes sustainable capture of groupers and discourages fishers from destructive practices such as the use of cyanide in catching live fish, Sadovy said.

 

“In one encouraging case, a trader in Indonesia is attempting to conduct his export trade in leopard coral trout sustainably and has introduced a minimum capture size to his business,” she said. “He has demonstrated that his business remains viable when he takes such measures.” – DVM/HS, GMA News