Partnership Program Towards Sustainable Tuna

Partnership Program Towards Sustainable Tuna

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.

© Alanah Torralba / WWF Coral Triangle Program

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.”


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.


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.


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Partnership Program Towards Sustainable Tuna