A pair of golden
gobies peer from
inside a glass bot-
tle that they’ve made
their home, off Anilao,
south of Manila. The
algae around them
appear blurry because
this photograph was
made with a long
exposure. Found items
on the sandy bottom
are quickly colonized.
Heavy rains wash trash
from cities into the
ocean. What doesn’t
sink can become float-
ing islands of debris.t fisheries. “Filipino people are fish-
lcala tells me when I meet him at the
center he leads at Silliman University,
h of Dauin. “To maintain that, there
e marine reserves.”
started in the early 1970s with two
e reserves: one near an island that
bited (Apo, off the coast of Dauin) and
an island that was not (Sumilon, near
forms of harvesting were prohibited.
ults were spectacular. In 10 years, fish
or some species in the sanctuaries—
oupers, snappers, and jacks—increased
xfold. As the density of fish inside the
ncreased, fishers reaped the benefit
the phenomenon of spillover: Fish
“spill over” reserve boundaries into waters
where they can be legally caught. The idea
that no-take sanctuaries could replenish fish
stocks on nearby exploited reefs offered a bright
speck of hope in an otherwise dismal outlook
for coastal fishers.
Apo Island’s success caught the attention
of Rodrigo Alanano, who was elected Dauin’s
mayor in 2001. Alanano decided to increase
the num ber of marine protected areas along
the Dauin coastline. He could do this because
municipalities have jurisdiction over their
coastal waters out to 15 kilometers, or 9.3 miles.
I ask him how he persuaded subsistence
fishers to give up a portion of their traditional
fishing grounds. “I told them we needed to havebreeding grounds as well as fishing grounds,”
he says. “I told them, ‘If you have a sanctuary,
populations will grow, and some fishes will get
out of the sanctuary and those ones are for you.
The reserve will be a breeding ground for fishes
now and forever, for you and for the future.’
Later on, I told them, it would become a diving
spot, and there would be an income from that.”
Still, getting fishers to accept an immediate
loss for an uncertain gain was no easy matter,
and many coastal dwellers opposed the sanc-
tuaries. Alanano was served with lawsuits and
received death threats. He shrugs at the memory.
“When I became mayor, I gave my life for this
profession,” he says.
“What made you so passionate?” I ask. “You’re
not even from a fishing family.”
“I am a mining engineer,” he replies. “I
worked for mining companies for 12 years
before entering politics. We destroyed moun-
tains. We used toxic chemicals that flowed out
to sea. I am an experienced destroyer of the
environment. I am licensed to destroy. What I
experienced is that once you destroy the envi-
ronment, no human being can put that right
again. It cannot be put back for your children.
And when you kill the last fish, you will realize
you can’t eat money.”
His arguments prevailed. During Alanano’s
nine years as mayor, he increased the num-
ber of MPAs along Dauin’s coastline from four
to 10. I dived in some of them. Though small,
they protect wondrous creatures. At one site I
watched scores of slender garden eels rise from
their holes in the seabed and sway as if hearing
the music of a snake charmer.
As Alanano foresaw, such sights are a draw-
ing card for tourists, and Dauin has become
a popular dive destination, as have dozens of
other sites across the 7,641 islands in the Phil-
ippines. Most of Dauin’s MPAs are referred to
by the names of fish species that serve as their
celebrity attractions: Nemo/Clown Fish MPA,
Mandarin MPA, Frog Fish MPA, Ghost Pipe and
Sea Horse MPA.
As tourism has flourished, fishers have seen
opportunities to switch from catching fish to
providing services. In Oslob, a town on the coast
of Cebu, few members of the fishers association
fish anymore. They earn a handsome living
enabling tourists to swim with whale sharks.
Near Puerto Galera, on the island of Mindoro, I
watched snorkelers being towed out to see giant
E OCEANS; IUCN; MLL; TNC; UNEP-WCMPATLAS.ORG/MC; WORLDFISH; WARINE RI
AN UNDERSEA SPLENDOR, UNDER STRESS 85