They saw catch rates decline by a factor of 10 in
a generation.
A quarter of the fish caught in Danajon come
from illegal and destructive practices. Subsis-
tence fishers, living at or below the poverty line,
are driven by desperation to use such methods.
Filipinos have the phrase kapit sa patalim, or
“grasp the blade.” A desperate person will clasp
even the sharp edge of a knife—breaking the
law, risking arrest, destroying the reefs that are
their lifeline.
In some months of the year, gleaners can
gather only about nine meager ounces of sea-
food an hour from the impoverished reefs. I
watch this man suck another breath, flail his
plywood fins, and descend.kills them outright, and they float to the surface
for fishers to collect.
Blast fishing is deadly for fish and dangerous
for fishers. If a bottle explodes too soon, you
could lose a hand, an arm, or a life. A fisher died
this way two days before I arrived here at the
Danajon Bank, 20 miles east of Cebu island, in
a region of the Philippines with a long history of
destructive fishing practices: explosives, cyanide
to flush fish out of coral crevices, nets so fine
they catch anything that moves.
All of these methods are illegal, all still in use.
They are a cumulative disaster for coral reefs,
a more instantaneous depletion of marine life
than the slower-burn tragedies of declining fish
stocks, pollution, and climate change.
I see a figure in the distance, gleaning in the
dynamited ruins, and swim to him. He’s wearing
a long-sleeved shirt, trousers, and a hood over
his head, with holes for his eyes and mouth. He
has a battered pair of goggles over his eyes and
pieces of plywood strapped to his feet for fins.
“Jellyfish?” I ask, pointing to his hood. My
boat driver had told me of tangling with a box
jellyfish in these waters. He just had time to
scream for help before passing out from the pain
of stinging tentacles. He showed me the welts on
his arm and stomach, still vivid after 15 years.
“Sun,” the diver answers.
To collect enough food for his family, he tells
me, he often has to stay out half a day in the
burning heat, combing the reefs. He tows a
polystyrene box to hold whatever he catches:
whelks, abalones, sea urchins, crabs, fish if
he’s lucky. He uses a hook in one hand and a
spear in the other. He pokes, prods, levers, and
hacks at the coral. I see a sudden puff of black
ink as he spears a cuttlefish.
He picks up a sea cucumber and hands the
warty creature to me. A tassel of white threads
adorns its rear end. Quicker than I can register,
the threads shoot out and wrap around my hand,
sticking to my skin like superglue—the animal’s
reaction to being disturbed. I disentangle the
creature, and it goes into the catch box.
The gleaner’s laborious search for food is
something that is happening across the Phil-
ippines, and throughout the Coral Triangle,
as ever increasing numbers of people hunt for
ever decreasing quantities of fish. For millions
of Filipinos, the sea is essential to survival. In
the Danajon region, three-quarters of house-
holds depend on fishing for food and livelihood.
78 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC