Case Studies

A REPORT ON THE IMPACT OF ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION ON THE SUBSISTENCE
FISHER AND COASTAL ENVIRONMENT OF AKLAN PROVINCE
A Research Project of Developers Foundation
Numancia, Aklan, Philippines
May 15, 2001

This research document was funded by a grant from Oxfam UK.

Report Summary

This report culminates a year-long study which we undertook based on our growing concern that current international trade commitments of the Philippines pose serious, unacknowledged threats to the environment, food security and livelihood situation of municipal small fisher folk of Aklan. Current "safety net" programs seek to address livelihood problems at a local level, but sidestep the question of whether trade itself is contributing to the crisis of the fisher folk. We believe we need to take a whole new look at how the country should deal not only with the local problems of Aklan, but national trade policy itself. This "new" look should be fundamentally influenced by fisher folks' realities and priorities.

In this report, we present evidence for the following points.

1. The Philippine fish industry has been opened up for export production and foreign import competition. The prevailing production trend is geared toward more open trade in the future.
2. Fish producers in Aklan are increasingly shifting production from the local market to external trade and to urban growth markets in the Philippines, especially Manila.
3. The coastal environment of Aklan is severely degraded. No solutions have been found to effectively reverse the current pattern of habitat destruction.
4. Subsistence fisher folk in Aklan, whose views have not been seriously considered in trade and fisheries policy, are getting poorer and are facing a food security and livelihood crisis.

Through a combination of interviews with business people and government officials, community fact-finding workshops in low-income fisher communities, and a review of official data, we identified substantial adverse effects in local fisher communities and on the coastal environment resulting due to the creation of market incentives for fishery exports. For example, some identified local effects of increasing export production were:

• Seasonal dumping of surplus inventories of prawns in the local market;
• Increased prices for local fish staples due to rising demand in Manila, which translates into an erosion of food security for low income fish producers;
• "Wasting" coastal hatchery facilities abandoned years ago, when foreign demand for Philippine prawns dried up;
• Heavy extraction of local shellfish from the wild, and overfishing in commercial grounds;
• Feeble employment alternatives for artisanal fishers whose catch comes from overcrowded local fishing grounds; and
• Long-term unresolved siltation and pollution problems in municipal bays and rivers after mangroves were cleared to make way for export-oriented aquaculture.

We recognize that macroeconomic policy is not the only cause of the problems in Aklan. In addition, we identified some local effects of domestic problems on fisher poverty and coastal habitat loss. These were:

• Dominance of local politics, in which LGU officials are more concerned about political survival than the coastal habitat or plight of fisher folk, and thus refuse to implement workable solutions.
• Unequal access to fishpond lease agreements and other production inputs by fisher folk.
• Soil erosion, siltation and pollution from local, non-export production activities.
• Overcrowding due to migration of inland and urban populations to the coast for food and income.

Although further research using quantitative methods of data analysis is needed to determine the relative significance of different underlying causes, we find from our data that the problems in Aklan cannot be fully understood, let alone effectively addressed, unless we consider the causes at both global and domestic levels, and see how they interact to create and perpetuate local problems. Our focus here is on global factors, since these are less visible and poorly understood, yet are important determinants of local conditions.

At the macroeconomic level, the Philippines is pushing ahead in signing new trade agreements with other countries. For example, as part of its trade agreement with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) group in 1996, the country has set a target of lowering import tariffs on most goods, including fish, to 5% in 2004. The liberalisation regime has focused public and private investments on expanding commercial and aquaculture production for export.

However, the Philippines has not given sufficient attention to the domestic social and ecological effects of this commitment. In Aklan, subsistence fisher folk are basically being pushed to leave fishing as a way of life and become pond workers or farmers. The government is not interested in investing in their own development as fishers, since they do not contribute directly and significantly to external trade. In other places such as Manila, fisher folk for the wet market are being displaced with the lowering of import barriers to fresh fish. Thus trade liberalisation appears to have negative externalities, or side effects which are not factored into policy decisions and official economic plans. But our findings suggest that where coastal fisheries are already severely degraded due to over-fishing and pollution, and where subsistence fisher livelihoods are at risk and the majority are living in acute poverty, new trade agreements will aggravate or even generate (rather than resolve) fisher poverty and coastal habitat loss.

To begin to correct this situation, we recommend a four point plan of action in designing national fisheries and trade policies:

1. Support fisher folks' self-reliance in food through increased fish (and other food) production for consumption and sale;
2. Invest aggressively in sustainable livelihood development by fisher folk, especially in fish culture but also in fish capture;
3. Make habitat conservation and restoration of fisheries managed by fisher folk a top priority in all applicable government policies and budgets;
4. Launch a massive restructuring program to augment local fisher folk influence in decision making and management of coastal habitats and fisheries policy, both locally and nationally.