Hence, the marine conservation initiative in Apo Island is a result of a community-based natural resource management that is highly sustainable. According to the IUCN in 2011, the island has become a premier tourist destination because of its abundant marine life. The municipal government collects fees from tourists and the money goes to conservation programs and law enforcement.
Are there plans to further improve your example of tourism supporting conservation in the future?
I am working with Dr. Angel Alcala to shed light on the plans to further improve this example for the future. Dr. Alcala spearheaded the marine sanctuary in Apo Island, among many other locations. He has kindly offered the following response with regards to Apo:
The Apo community is unique in that in the beginning of our community work on the island in early 1980s, we, together with the people of Apo had decided that aside from improving fish biomass, the protective management aimed for attracting tourists. Most no-take marine protected areas in the Philippines have been set up to build fish biomass so that adjacent fishing areas would benefit through spillover of adults from protected areas and keep fisheries sustainable. However, along with Apo, our team also helped local communities establish no-take marine reserves on two islands in the Bohol Sea, namely Balicasag and Pamilacan Islands for both fishery and tourism purposes. These two islands are also tourist destinations with many tourists visiting these two small islands today.
Regarding tourism, it can be said that many marine protected areas in the Visayas are tourist destinations as well. In the country as a whole, there are more than a thousand marine protected areas and many to these are tourist spots as well. The largest of these areas are Tubbataha Reef, Apo Reef (off southwestern Mindoro), and Carbin Reef (off northern Negros Occidental province). Tourism has been built around protected reefs all over the country.
How could your example be transferred to another protected area and how could your experience be shared with others?
The transferability of the example area is also explained by Dr. Alcala below:
We used the strategy of community-based marine protected area in our advocacy. This means that local communities and NGOs participate in the establishment of protected areas, and it is the local communities together with local governments that manage these areas. Our role has been as facilitators. We used educational and scientific techniques to convince local stakeholders to protect and manage their coral reefs, and we assist in technical matters like monitoring and documenting by writing and publishing papers; these include both scientific papers and news reports. The latter are widely published in newspapers and have raised public awareness of the need to conserve coral reefs for food security. The national government has adopted the program of marine protected areas as means to conserve coral reef resources.
Given the explanation by Dr. Alcala on how their conservation efforts have led to action for other marine protected areas, it is evident that the Apo Island example has already been replicated elsewhere within the country. I believe we can take this further by assuming that the Apo Island example can also be replicated internationally, especially within future sanctuaries in the Coral Triangle. According to the World Wildlife Fund in 2011, although there are many MPAs within the Coral Triangle, too few of them are effective in realizing the goals of marine conservation. Hence, profiling the Apo Marine Sanctuary as an LT&C example will shed light on the feasibility of replicating its success elsewhere in the region.
For more information, please visit http://www.ltandc.org/apo-island-marine-reserve-philippines/ , or contact: Iris Carla De Jesus (phone +47-47442925)
www.tommyschult.com
January 2017 - Sustainable Tourism
58 - SEVENSEAS