Exploring Aquaculture as Alternative

Livelihood for Fisherfolks

Aquaculture is increasingly popular as the demands of protein from fish
continue to increase to feed rapid increasing population. This inadvertently put
a high pressure on our seas and coral reefs. Marine Protected Areas created
in response but it was not enough. As discussed in the previous post, Make
the Marine Protected Areas Self Sustaining, one of the solutions are providing
alternative livelihood for the fisher-folks. Fisherfolks are familiar with the fish
so its easy for them to learn farming it. It also be a education for some.

As concerned citizens, we take the problem seriously and make ourselves

part of the solution. Acknowledging the limited resources we had, we can't do
much but we can always do something about it. We will never know until we
try.

We decided to select an aquaculture system having the following criteria;

1. Low to medium operational cost - so it can be done with no operation

subsidy to make it affordable by the common fisher-folks. So a credit
arrangement or a government grant can be given for the initial capital.
2. Low environmental impact - We are trying to protect and conserve our
coral reefs, it must not work against it.
3. Scalability - The pressure kept on increasing, so the system should be
scalable enough that is easy to start small as baby steps, and can be
expanded to bigger system so that it can be flexible enough to size
according to the needs.
Aquaculture Farms

Grouper/ Pugapo. Credit to owner. from internet.

The most famous aquaculture in the Philippines are the bangus (milkfish) and
tilapia cultures, raised in inland ponds and/or marine cages. There are mud
crabs, groupers, pompano, seabass, seaweeds, oysters, clams or mussels,
shrimps, and abalones.

Grouper and pompano are high value crops. It looks lucrative but it needs
extra care and training. Its feeds tend to be high as it is dependent to
commercial feeds. Alternative is a constant supply of "trash fishes" which is
getting scarce.

Raising mud crabs requires certain location usually a mangrove area

converted into ponds. It’s not scalable enough as it suits only to certain
locations. We cannot clear more mangrove forest.

Oysters, mussels, and clams can be cultivated for food. In some countries
they cultivate it as natural filters to clean the water. They are relatively cheap
to raise but is limited to certain locations and its availability of wild juveniles. I
still have to know if there is a hatchery for oysters and clams.
 Talaba or Oyster. Image credit to jauntexpress

Shrimps are also widely raised. This too are dependent to commercial feeds.

Raising bangus and tilapia are becoming more highly intensive driven by
profits, and dependent to commercial feeds. In my experience, the cages and
ponds are not necessarily can be called a low environmental impact.
Traditionally, they are raised in ponds that are created by clearing mangrove
forest. Bangus had been raise now in a marine cage, but because its
intensive, the fish waste are to much that, for me, nature cannot clean it up by
itself. The new organic feeds for tilapia is being introduced recently, and
perhaps it could be a good solution. Raising it with other species like clams
and oysters being a filter feeder, together with seaweeds in a marine cage,
can lessen the environmental impact. However, it makes it more complicated
for a small scale farmers.
 integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA)
example
The new organic tilapia farming method seems attractive system. This can be
a good candidate for aquaponics. Aquaponics is a better system but let us
leave that in a separate post.
 Photo Courtesy from oceanactionresourcecenter.org

Seaweeds is the cheapest and easy to grow. There are

many established farms for this and the market still growing. Its very low
impact on the environment.

Growing abalone is relatively new and its relatively cheap as it only needs
seaweeds as feed. It doesn't require large net cages. Low environmental
impact. In fact, I was told, that this culture doesn't need a DENR permit.
It may take longer to grow but its relatively easy. Currently, abalone are raise
in a weighted to depth small cages tied in a floating raft. Having a seaweed as
its feeds can close a economic cycle in a small villages.
 Abalone broodstock

Abalone feed on seaweeds that are grown near. No middle man on its feed
supply so it makes this system attractive as alternative livelihood in a village
scale. Growing abalone and seaweeds doesn't require too much attention that
the farmers can do their other jobs to supplement their income, like for Bantay
Dagat volunteers, or more quality time in their family. For these reason, we
have chosen this system for trial cropping as a demo farm project.

Gathering Insights from the People with Experience.

In the Philippines, BFAR is the government body who has the mandate for
sustainable fisheries, and so is for aquaculture.We visited their office in Cebu
and in Bohol on their multi-species hatchery. They have given many valuable
information. They can provide abalone juveniles for our grow-out in our trial
cropping. They promote abalone farming as it can also replenish the wild
stock because as it still growing to a marketable size in the cage, they are
already spawning.

BFAR Multi-Species Hatchery

SEAFDEC, a research organization near Iloilo City can also help for training
and consultancy needs.

We visited some sites that had tried growing abalone in Buenavista, Bohol
and in Ronda, Cebu to gather some insights.

In Bohol, its a PO or Peoples Organization, that had grown abalone by sea

ranching just under their shelter in the seaweed farm, and are positive on its
results but had stopped as their cages are damaged due to the recent
typhoon. They had learned and optimistic to continue to farm abalone.
In Cebu, its a social enterprise that had farmed abalone together with sea
urchins. They had chosen abalone and sea urchin, for the same reason we
had. Perhaps, we can add sea urchin as well in our trial cropping. The grow
out had been good and in fact they were amazed how fast it had grown.
However, during the same typhoon that struck in Bohol, a big high intensive
bangus fish cage was floated away towards their farm and had adversely
affected the remaining abalone. It is suspected that the waste of the
neighboring bangus fish cage had slowed the growth and killed the abalone.
This is a good insight to learn from them. Abalone is too sensitive to fish cage
wastes.

High Intensive Bangus Cage (top left) near Abalone farm

The guys from Ronda are willing to help us start our trial cropping. We are
thankful for that.
Trial Cropping in Dumanjug, Cebu

Volunteers in Dumanjug had expressed their interest to participate in our trial

cropping project I immediately inspected the sea near their residence.

I learned that there has been reports of a chlorine (instead of cyanide)

poisoning fishing practice to catch the remaining fishes hiding in the corals.
Chlorine because its cheap and available than cyanide. We are getting
efficient in killing our reefs. This made me more motivated to push through the
project. I snorkelled around the reef for almost two hours and came out heart
broken. As in gajud! Too few fishes and the remaining are very young and
small. There is evidence of algae slowly taking over the reef. At first you will
never know it until I found a small coral with a group of five small fishes hiding
on it in contrast to other coral without resident juvenile fishes. The small fished
kept the coral clean in exchange of the protection. Too bad I had not able to
take a good picture of it.
 Reef in Bitoon, Dumanjug. Help me spot the fish.

We had initial discussions on the volunteers about the project and decided to
discuss it further to the village chairman. It is also to prevent violations of
existing ordinances on the declared Marine Protected Areas.

We needed a base for the operations and had arrange to build a bunk house
or we fondly called "barracks" for work area, storage, shelter, and office for
the project. A small traditional house by the limestone cliff overlooking the
Tanon Strait. This will be the start of the 2nd stage of the project, the trial
cropping.
 Barracks Under Construction

We are now starting to build our floating platform, as of writing, and soon we
will have our juveniles in the cages.

Future Works

In this project, its our objective to succeed growing abalone, seaweeds, and
sea urchin. Promote the lessons learned, and hopefully, other fisherfolks that
are pessimistic about this are persuaded to join us. In this way, we can protect
the coral reefs by giving them alternative livelihood, education, and effectively
made them the steward of their own reefs.

As we have learned that the local Bantay Dagat themselves had no other
income but fishing in an already over fished sea and reefs, we are trying to
persuade them to participate in our project, so they can be effective of their
duties.

This project will serve as a demo for students, local government servants,
conservationists, investors, and fisherfolks.

Stay tuned...

-Arthur Asodisen