Safe at Last

Text and Photos by Jeneen R. Garcia
first published in Destination Cebu, August 2004

Twenty years ago, with an underwater desert fringing its shores, the irony of Sumilon Island would not have escaped anyone.

One of the two oldest marine sanctuaries in the country, the Sumilon Island Fish Sanctuary was established in 1973 by the Silliman University Marine Lab (SUML). The Municipal Council of Oslob, a town 15 minutes away by boat from Sumilon and 120 km south of Cebu City, also passed an ordinance declaring the entire 50-hectare island as a marine reserve. Fish and corals, already abundant to begin with, teemed more than ever in the waters off the uninhabited island.

A decade later, only sand and rubble covered its silent depths. Muro-ami had dramatically changed Sumilon’s seascape.

Muro-ami is a fishing method used in reefs where skin divers pound corals with weights to scare the fish and drive them towards a large net. As many as 200 divers are used for this operation, sometimes including children who need to earn for their families. Commonly used in the Sulu Sea near Palawan, muro-ami was first banned in 1986, and further prohibited by the Philippine Fisheries Code in 1998 not only for effectively destroying corals, but also for efficiently sweeping reefs clean of marine life in a single operation.

A sign that proclaimed, “Welcome to Muro-Ami Country” greeted visitors in Oslob. Decades worth of corals, known to grow at a rate of only 1 cm per year, were literally crushed in a matter of seconds.

Alarmed by what was happening to the sanctuary, the SUML brought the matter to national authorities. Through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), Sumilon became the first National Fish Sanctuary that same year. This, however, did nothing to stop the destruction. All efforts at marine conservation education and sanctuary management collapsed.

Things only stabilized in 1987 when the municipal government became open to new management strategies. A Japanese resort was allowed to open in 1992 as a way to increase tourism revenues. The German Development Service (GDS) also facilitated a Memorandum of Agreement two years later for the Municipality of Oslob, the resort, and GDS to jointly manage the island. In 1997, a caretaker was again deployed to the island, but by this time, the resort had to close down because of bad business. A Filipino resort developer bought part of the island, but again the venture proved unsuccessful. To this day, unfinished resort structures remain on Sumilon.

When finally the Municipality of Oslob took over full responsibility of the island in 1998, only a semblance of management was in place: the sanctuary boundaries were not clearly demarcated by marker buoys, the guardhouse was dilapidated, and nobody was seriously enforcing the ordinances. The sanctuary had a user-fee system, but the town did not allot a budget for maintenance or operations.

Fortunately, planning workshops initiated by the USAid-funded Coastal Resource Management Project (CRMP) produced a Municipal Multi-year Coastal Resource Management Plan and a Marine Protected Area (MPA) Management Plan in 2001. When CRMP phased out shortly after, the Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation (CCEF), a non-government organization, stepped in with technical support in 2002 to help implement the plans.

This time, the local fisherfolk—not just the mayor, the municipal council, or other government bodies—had a chance to be part of managing the sanctuary. Fishing villages right across Sumilon that depended on the island’s rich marine resources finally had a say on how to take care of the very thing that kept them alive. During the assessment and planning workshops, a Coastal Resource Management (CRM) Commission was created, with fisherfolk as committee members.

A series of seminars on sanctuary management has encouraged the locals to take part in buoy installation and maintenance, the construction of a new guardhouse, a coastal clean-up, and even reef monitoring. To make sure the fishing community’s voice is always heard, regular dialogues are now held between local government officials and the fisherfolk volunteers.

Law enforcement has improved in leaps and bounds. Through continual training by government agencies and other partner institutions, the town now has 72 deputized fish wardens organized into a coastal law enforcement team known as the Oslob Fish Wardens Association (OFWA). To date, OFWA has apprehended 19 commercial fishing vessels illegally operating in the municipal waters. Residents of fishing villages pitch in by providing intelligence to the municipal police, and by serving as look-outs during seaborne patrols.

In May this year, two team members were trained in SCUBA diving so the town can monitor its sanctuaries even without external technical assistance. Local non-diver volunteers, using just mask and snorkel, have also been trained in benthic assessment and fish visual census. The divers help in guiding tourists and orienting them on the rules of the island. With the user-fee system now fully implemented by three municipal collectors, Oslob earned PhP 145,000 from visitors to Sumilon in 2003 alone.

On Fridays, strangers to the island will see fishermen having what seems like a picnic on a sandbar. These are bubo operators who gather weekly to collect their fish traps. Diving to the island’s sandy bottom 150 ft below, they harvest the catch, help their fellow fishers lift the heavy fish traps, and together celebrate the bounty and beauty that is Sumilon.

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BUREAU OF FISHERIES & AQUATIC RESOURCES (BFAR)
BFAR VII Compound, Arellano Blvd.
6000 Cebu City
(032)2562772-76

COASTAL CONSERVATION & EDUCATION FOUNDATION
3rd Floor, PDI Condominium
Arch. Reyes Ave., Banilad
6000 Cebu City
(032)2336909, 2336947
ccef@mozcom.com
www.coast.ph

COASTAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ALLIANCE of REGION 7 (CLEAR-7)
The Regional Director
Department of Environment & Natural Resources
DENR VII Compound, Greenplains Subdivision,
Banilad, Manadaue City
(032)3469177

COASTAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PROJECT
5th Floor CIFC Tower, CIFC Tower
Reclamation Area
6000 Cebu City
(032)2321821, 2321822
crmp@oneocean.org
www.oneocean.org

SILLIMAN UNIVERSITY MARINE LAB
Silliman Beach
Bantayan, Dumaguete City
(035) 2252499