This document discusses tuna fishing in Tiwi, Albay in the Philippines and efforts towards sustainable tuna fishing. It describes how tuna fishing supports local communities and economies for generations but is now threatened by overfishing. It outlines a partnership program between the local government, fishermen, and conservation groups to regulate fishing seasons and practices, establish marine protected areas, curb illegal fishing, and build infrastructure to efficiently deliver tuna to markets while supporting artisanal fishermen. The goal is to balance tuna fishing and conservation to ensure tuna populations remain healthy and continue supporting livelihoods.

1. Partnership Program
Towards Sustainable Tuna

2. A child plays on the shores of Barangay Sugod in Tiwi, Albay, beside tuna fishing
boats docked for the low season. Though tuna season in Lagonoy Gulf lasts for
only a few months, mainly from September until about January, fishermen can
earn enough from tuna fishing to support themselves throughout the year.
Between seasons, they catch other fish or engage in work like construction to
earn extra money.

3. Sofronio “Jun” Kallos Jr., a tuna buyer and financier from
Barangay Sugod in Tiwi, Albay, shows off the scale with which
he weighs the fishermen’s catch at his ‘casa’ or landing station.
This ‘casa’ was built in 1998, and was originally just a
thatched-roof hut. Today, there is a styrofoam storage
container to keep the fish in ice before it is transported to
buyers. As a financier, Kallos lends money to fishermen who
need funds in the off-season—debts which are quickly repaid
once they begin catching tuna, Kallos assures.

4. A fish seller chops freshly
delivered tuna at the market in
Tabaco, Albay. Like in most
coastal communities in the
Coral Triangle, tuna is an
important and affordable
protein source and staple food
in Tiwi, and has been caught in
the waters of Lagonoy Gulf for
generations, fishermen recount.

5. Vendors arranging the produce at the public market in Tabaco, Albay. Tuna
caught in Lagonoy Gulf is brought to small fish landings in Tiwi and Tabaco
before it is taken to the market or transported to buyers elsewhere. A goal
of the fishery improvement project is to build infrastructure and establish
more efficient delivery systems so the supply can quickly reach exporters
and larger markets, as well.

6. Tiwi Municipal Agricultural Officer Leonila Coralde shows off a chart
of the species of tuna caught in Lagonoy Gulf, what she calls “a main
highway for migratory species, including tuna.”Coralde was an agri-
technologist with the local government in 1991, when fishermen
started complaining about dwindling catch. Information campaigns
and regular policing have since helped curb illegal fishing practices in
Tiwi.

7. Tiwi Mayor Jaime Villanueva
has earned the respect of WWF
and project partners for his
active protection of marine
resources—“even when that’s
not what politicians usually do
to win votes,” he says with a
laugh. Villanueva, who is on his
last term as Mayor, was a
municipal councilor when he
pushed for the establishment of
Tiwi’s first marine sanctuary.
Among his first moves after his
election was to empower the
sea patrols and get Tiwi’s
fishermen and their vessels
registered and licensed.

8. Jose Condat, “Manoy Joe” to all and sundry, a 64-year-old fisherman from Barangay Putsan
in Tiwi and a volunteer member of the Bantay Dagat (sea patrol), tends to the patrol boat. A
fisherman since 1963, he has headed several small fishermen’s associations. During high
season, the team patrols five days a week, on 24-hour shifts. He sometimes lets first-time
offenders get off with a warning when they are caught, Manoy Joe reveals, but repeat
offenders bear the brunt of the law, and cases are filed against them.

9. A fisherman holds up a juvenile yellow fin tuna
caught by a commercial fishing vessel. The
catching of juvenile tuna before they reach
reproductive age is one of the biggest threats
to tuna stocks and population health
worldwide, says Coral Triangle Programme
Tuna Strategy Leader Jose Ingles. Unrelenting
demand for tuna has led to such aggressive
and unsustainable practices that are leaving
tuna populations with little time to recover
from the massive fishing.

10. Fishermen aboard a commercial vessel
weigh fish caught during a fishing
expedition to Tiwi, Albay. By
law, commercial fishing boats have to keep
a specified distance from the boundaries of
municipal waters, which are the domain of
registered local fishermen. Still, the impact
of such large-scale fishing operations and
their more efficient gear on artisanal
handline fishermen cannot be ignored.

11. The crew of a commercial fishing boat
docked off Barangay San Roque in
Tabaco, Albay deliver their packed and
weighed catch to the market. Larger
boats head out to fishing grounds as far
as Rapu-Rapu Reef and Catanduanes, in
open sea, to catch tuna. Still, local
fishermen express concern that since
tuna are migratory, constantly moving
species, many fish are caught by the
bigger boats even before they get to the
community’s municipal waters.

12. Fisherman Loreto Bollosa, a
fisherman in Barangay
Fatima, Tabaco, Albay, and his wife
Leonilda have reason to smile, as
they built this concrete house from
his earnings as a tuna fisherman.
Behind the house, the couple
maintains a small piggery to
augment their income off-season.
Bollosa’s earnings have been
enough to send most of their nine
children to school. Now, “It’s the
kids who send us money when we
need it,” Bollosa says. “That’s why I
never wanted any of them to follow
in my footsteps, because fishing is a
hard life.”

13. A handline fisherman does his solitary work under
the gaze of a lovely Mayon Volcano in Barangay
Sugod, Tiwi, Albay. Tiwi has over 60,000 hectares of
municipal waters and 17,000 kilometers of coastline.
Along with Occidental Mindoro, another Philippine
province, this area, which sits in the rich fishing
grounds of the Lagonoy Gulf, has been identified as a
fisheries development site, to support the work of
handline fishermen.

14. A fisherman prepares his handline fishing gear in Barangay
Sugod, Tiwi, Albay. Using only a bit of bait (chopped fish, usually smaller
tuna) tied to a weight and a nylon string, handline fishing is a traditional
method that involves catching only one fish at a time. It is widely used by
small-scale fishermen all over the Coral Triangle, as it is both low-impact and
inexpensive.