Marine Protected Areas
With the first MPA established in Sumilon in 1974, 25 percent of Sumilon’s coral reefs were meticulously protected from 1974 onwards and within 10 years, there was increased fish yield. However, fish yields dwindled after protection waned in 1985. This emphasized the long term need to protect reserves and to maintain them effectively.
The World Resource Institute conducted a MPA analysis in the Philippines in 2011, on 232 mapped MPAs, which comprises all 28 National MPAs and about 200 local MPAs. Surveys on the effectiveness of these MPAs rated 25 MPAs as fully effective at reducing fishing pressure, 112 as partially effective and 61 as ineffective. Of the fully effective MPAs, only 2 are national MPAs while 23 are local. Though not representative of the full number of MPAs in the Philippines, this result could suggest that MPAs are better managed at the local level due to the smaller scale, and more focused and direct management by the local government.
In total, 7 percent of Philippines’ reefs are inside MPAs, with less than 1 percent in effectively managed MPAs, 2 percent in partially effective MPAs, 2 percent in ineffective MPAs and the remaining 3 percent in unrated MPAs. Again, this could suggest that a large majority of the coral reefs in the Philippines are still unprotected and even those that are supposed to be protected in the MPAs are not effectively protected.
In addition, another study conducted by the Society of Conservation Biology evaluated the effectiveness of the MPAs in the Philippines and found that despite that the Philippine Marine Sanctuary Strategy target was agreed upon through a series of expert workshops and has much solid scientific basis, the target for protecting 10 percent of coral reefs area falls short of general recommendations. A minimum of 20 percent and an optimum of 30 to 50 percent of coral reefs area should be set aside in marine reserves instead. This suggests that current and future conservation efforts for coral reefs are still not sufficient and the various organizations in-charged should relook into the targets plans made.
Education and Training
According to the participants, the “Train the Trainers” CCA workshop has helped them to get a sound assessment of what is happening in the communities and understand the data collected from the assessments. This helps them to make better CCA plans and help save the coral reefs from harms such as coral bleaching and ocean acidification.
The response from the pilot project has been very positive with all participants saying they would recommend Sea Adventure School. However, the program needs to be monitored for a longer period of time in order to get an accurate assessment of its effectiveness in educating the younger generation.