Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala has vowed to revitalize the fishing industry and reverse the current condition of dwindling catch and vanishing fish population.
Central to this task is the scientific research needed to determine exactly just how fish populations move within the 13 major fishing grounds in the country and how fisheries rules could be implemented to shore up the extant fish species that have moved further out at sea and down to the equator.
Alcala has been beset by criticisms about the planned importation of fish for the wet markets but argued the only imports allowed are for the canneries and not for the markets.
Prohibitions on the catch of sardines have been imposed during the spawning season in the Zamboanga Peninsula to allow the fish population to regenerate itself and supply the canning factories with enough sardines, he added.
Moreover, fisheries experts have also asked Alcala to reappoint Dr. Joebert Toledo as head of the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (Seafdec) in Tigbauan, Iloilo to prop up the science behind the policy of fish conservation.
Toledo, a multi-awarded scientists trained in Japan and credited for working on managed fisheries as well as the culture of milkfish and other finfish species in inland ponds, has the support of local and foreign experts in Seafdec, a treaty agency funded by the Philippine government and other Southeast Asian nations.
2011 Tempo