Sustainability assessment: case study in the Philippines
Live-reef Fish for Food Industry
In April 2001, WWF launched regional activities associated with the Sustainability Assessment SA) Project in Manila at a workshop entitled Creating the Context for Sustainability Assessment of Trade and building Capacity in the Philippines.
About 50 people attended from government and non-governmental organisations, research institutes, and academia. A multi-stakeholder group was established to examine how SA can best be adapted to the national decision-making process.
This characterised the process employed in the work in the Philippines which was guided by a Technical Working Group and included a strong element of public participation.
The process employed and major findings from the work in the Philippines are summarised in a pamphlet: Sustainability Assessment of Trade-related Policies: Drawing from Philippine Experience in the Fisheries Sector.
The SA on the Philippine fisheries sector commenced with a preliminary macro-level research on the Tariff Report Program. The research documented and analysed the trade policy reforms in the fishery sector since the 1990s and assessed the economic effects of the trade reform on import and export patterns.
It also served to scope the ideal fisheries sectors for the SA. It recommends further work on the TRP. A micro level assessment was undertaken on the Live Reef Fish for Food Industry. Results indicate that sustainability is compromised from a biological, ecological and economic perspective in this industry.
The behaviour and structure of the live reef fish sub-sector shows that the sub-sector is mining and degrading its resource base rapidly. Extraction has already exceeded the maximum sustainable yield and catch is declining, caught fish are getting smaller and the fishing season is getting longer. Therefore, income derived from fishing is now below the legal minimum wage and employment has increased because fishers cannot find employment outside of the industry.
