Filipino marine scientists are encouraged to study fishing practices in its territorial waters to prevent the country’s fishery from collapsing. It is believed that biodiversity might slow down the erosion of fish stocks, it could not prevent the collapse. This is why economists and marine biologists are looking at ways to prevent such catastrophe.
The authority is now considering a strategy to privatize the commercial fisheries through what is known as catch shares or Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). It is informed that like other forms of wildlife, desired species of freshwater and marine fish are renewable resources if their populations are controlled by natural factors and there is enough breeding stock to repopulate the species for the next year.
It is told that the commercial hunting and harvesting of fish from the ocean is an important source of food and protein for much of the world’s population. It is fact that depletion of resources occurs through the ignorance and greed of individuals, industries or nations as they attempt to get as much of a resource as they can in the shortest time possible with little concern for future supplies. The impact of this, many species of commercially valuable fish found in international waters and in the waters off coastal nations have been over-fished to the point of commercial extinction—they have become so rare that it no longer pays to hunt them.
Experts believe that the use of ITQs changes this by dividing the quota and giving shares to fishermen as a long-term right. Fishermen, therefore, have an interest in good management and conservation because both increase the value of their fishery and their share. Setting up ITQs will be Herculean task and the government authority is perfect and so is policing of the system by the cooperative fishermen themselves. The cooperative fishermen could claim ownership over parcels of sea within their municipalities and keep others out.
