One of the topics of conversation recently among practitioners of environmental advocacy has been how to convince local communities to set aside protected areas. One observation mentioned by some of the participants was that protection of any part of the environment requires time to take effect and is perceived as denying people of their livelihoods, especially in the Philippines, where poverty is rife. At first glance, this denial would not seem right under the principle that people’s needs must be given priority attention. So many people, including government officials, hesitate or even disagree, to set aside some areas of the environment for full protection from exploitation even for the purpose of allowing depleted biological resources to recover in the course of time.
But such an attitude is the main reason for the failure of the highly depleted resources of the country to recover and to provide useful products for people. The damage to the habitats has reached the tipping point and has become irreversible in many coastal areas, increasing the incidence and the extent of poverty in the country.
The case of coral reefs reduced to rubble by dynamite blasting and use of cyanides is a prime example. Many coral reefs and their associated fisheries have not recovered since their initial destruction in the 1940s and 1950s and subsequent assaults from continuing fishing activities during the following decades. These reefs have remained to this day “desert areas” incapable of producing the marine biodiversity and the biomass of fish they once were contributing to the food economy of coastal communities.
A parallel situation is true of the tropical rainforest. The productivity shown in the many forest products (not counting the ecosystem services of this forest) that had sustained upland communities in the past has been lost with the massive destruction of the large species of trees that were logged to be converted into money and wealth benefiting only a few of our people. Many of these species may have gone extinct by this time.
Let me return to the main subject of this column, which is communication to convince people to protect the environment through the protected areas concept. First of all, this concept does not mean that people cannot make use of their resources. For marine protected areas, it means that only a smaller portion of a given marine area is fully protected from human use; to be exact about 20-30% of the total marine area. The rest of the marine area is set aside for fishing, using methods of capture that are not destructive to the habitat. So contrary to claims, the concept of marine protected area does not prohibit the legitimate use of fishery resources in the larger area reserved for fishing, and fishers continue to benefit from the fishing area.
It is important, however, that the concept must be explained very clearly to the stakeholders. The no-take zone is off limits to fishing because this area is reserved for fish to grow larger and to reproduce, biological activities that will increase their total biomass. This increased biomass will result in some of the fish spilling over to the adjacent fishing area, thus increasing the volume of fish available for fishers to catch. So the no-take zone actually increases the potential fish catch, benefiting the fishers over time. If explained this way, I do not think anybody in his right mind will object to the establishment of marine reserves or marine protected areas. There is one catch, however, and this is: The no-take zones must be totally protected from fishing for them to generate added biomass, and it is the responsibility of fishing communities to totally protect them from fishing. It is in this regard that fishing communities may fail to profit from marine reserves not because marine reserves are not effective but because they do not protect their no-fishing marine reserves, a behavior common in many coastal communities in the Philippines.
The acceptance of the marine reserve concept depends on how well the concept of protected areas is explained to the stakeholders. It is also a matter of who does the explanation. It is suggested that only people who have studied and have had practical experience in marine reserves be the ones to explain and to communicate to the people how protected areas work and how they benefit the people.