23
Feb 2009 - The livelihoods of more than
a hundred thousand people in the Philippines
are under threat with the trade in live
reef fish destined for the seafood restaurants
of Hong Kong and mainland China facing imminent
collapse.
A summit on sustainable
live reef fish trade starting today on the
Philippines island of Palawan will examine
ways to avoid a collapse of this highly
unregulated trade due to overfishing, such
as through the introduction of accreditation
processes, quotas, levies and surveillance
and monitoring systems.
The live reef fish trade
from Palawan has serviced the appetite for
fresh tropical fish at business lunches
and expensive banquets in Asia since the
1980s, bringing more than $US100 million
dollars annually to fishing communities
on the island, where popular coral trout
is caught often with the use of cyanide
or explosives.
The Philippines is the
biggest supplier of the most high value
live reef fish, coral trout, to seafood
hubs such as Hong Kong and mainland China,
and the province of Palawan supplies around
60 per cent of all Philippines fish.
“The trade in live reef
fish in Palawan supports more than a hundred
thousand people many of whom have few alternatives
for livelihoods, yet the fishery is highly
unregulated and is in a serious state of
decline,” said Dr Geoffrey Muldoon, Live
Reef Fish Strategy Leader for WWF’s Coral
Triangle Program.
“Surveys undertaken
show that 60 per cent of all fish taken
from the reefs around Palawan are now juveniles,
which is a good indication that the adults
have been removed from the ecosystem and
that it has been highly overfished,” Dr
Muldoon said.
“Under a business as
usual scenario, Palawan’s live reef fish
trade will become economically unviable
within the next decade and without a comprehensive
management plan and the introduction of
an appropriate quota system, communities
that depend on the fishery for their livelihoods
face a significant food security threat.”
The Palawan live reef
fish summit, convened by the Palawan Council
for Sustainable Development and WWF, will
for the first time bring together live reef
fish traders to discuss the sustainable
management of the fishery, with a view to
establishing a regional alliance with traders
from other live reef fish hubs such as those
in Malaysia and Indonesia.
“This alliance will
provide a unified voice for fishers and
traders to express their social and economic
concerns, as well as provide the regional
network needed to pursue a more sustainable
trade,” Dr Muldoon said.
“This comes at a time
when climate change threatens to place further
pressures on ecosystems and on fish populations
dependent on coral reefs for survival. Building
resilience into ecosystems is critical for
the ongoing food security of millions of
people in the region, such as those in Palawan.”
Leaders of the six nations
that make up the Coral Triangle – Philippines,
Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon
Islands and Timor Leste – will gather in
Manado, Indonesia, in May for the World
Oceans Conference where they will announce
a comprehensive set of actions to protect
ecosystems and food security in the region.
The IUCN for the first
time last year assessed all 161 species
of grouper, a reef fish which makes up a
large part of the Coral Triangle’s live
fish trade. Twenty grouper species were
assessed as threatened with extinction,
including the squaretail coral grouper and
humpback grouper, which are found throughout
the Coral Triangle and are a popular luxury
live food in Asian seafood restaurants.
Geoffrey Muldoon, Live Reef Fish Trade Strategy
Leader, WWF Coral Triangle Program
+ More
Critical protection
sought for Australia’s big blue backyard
23 Feb 2009 - Perth,
Australia - Nine out of 10 marine species
found off Australia’s south-west coast are
found nowhere else on earth but less than
one per cent of this globally significant
region is protected.
A new report found a
series of globally significant “hotspots”
for marine life in the region, home to a
far greater proportion of unique marine
life than the Great Barrier Reef, and recommends
the creation of large sanctuaries to secure
its future.
Protecting Western Australia’s
big blue backyard was prepared by the Australian
Conservation Foundation for a new collaboration
of key Australian and international conservation
groups formed to secure the future of Australia’s
south-west marine environment.
WWF-Australia is a key
member of “Save our Marine Life”, which
also includes the Conservation Council of
Western Australia, the Australian Conservation
Foundation, the Wilderness Society, the
Australian Marine Conservation Society,
the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Environment
Group.
The report highlighted
Perth Canyon, one of only two known sites
in Australian waters where the endangered
blue whale comes to feed, and the Diamantina
Fracture Zone, Australia’s largest mountain
range submerged in its deepest stretch of
water at 7,400 metres and thought to host
unique species not yet known to science.
The report also identified the importance
of creating large marine sanctuaries to
Western Australia's tourism and whale watching
industry.
At the launch in Perth
today Professor Jessica Meeuwig of the Centre
for Marine Futures at the University of
Western Australia said: “Many economically
important marine species, such as rock lobster,
dhufish and baldchin groper are under threat.
“Large marine sanctuaries
are critical to maintaining the health of
the marine environment, helping fish stocks
recover and securing the future of commercial
and recreational fishing in the region.”
