The Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will provide large fishing vessels to tuna catchers in Eastern Samar province to improve their fishing capabilities and production.
BFAR 8 (Eastern Visayas) Hannibal Chavez said on Tuesday they would train in August two fishermen’s groups in Eastern Samar in how to operate the 62-footer fiberglass fishing vessel with full machinery and accessories.
“The target is to implement the project within the year. For one year, the vessels’ operation is under the management of BFAR. If they are already capacitated, the vessel will be turned over to fisherfolk, but we are still there to monitor,” Chavez told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
Each one of the large fishing vessels has four attached small fishing or catcher boats, which can move away from the mother boat to catch tuna in the Pacific Ocean. It has a storage facility that can carry about two metric tons of fish.
Dan de San Miguel, BFAR-8 provincial fishery director, said the beneficiaries are two fishermen’s associations in the towns of Guiuan and Balangkayan.
“The provision of fishing vessel(s) will increase the capacity of our fishermen to catch more tuna. Usually, fishermen in Eastern Samar don’t go far to catch tuna since they always run out of supplies of food, water, and ice,” de San Miguel added.
Commonly, tuna fishing in Samar areas is on a small scale, with locals fishing in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean using small motorboats only and lines waiting for tunas to bite.
Early this year, the BFAR-8 turned over a PHP39 million purse seine fishing vessel to members of the Northern Samar Pacific Towns Fishermen’s Cooperative.
The fisheries bureau awarded the vessel through its Capacitating Municipal Fisherfolk Program designed to raise the capability of local fishers to contribute to the country’s annual tuna production.
The Pacific towns of the province and some areas in Eastern Samar are within the Tuna Conservation Management Zone (TCMZ), which is rich in tuna.