Guindacpan crab fishers ask 

help for sustainable industry 

TAGBILARAN CITY, November 14, 2017 (PIA)--Soft loans for competitive buying stations and facilities for crab resource management, is what fisherfolk of Guindacpan Island in Talibon aspire as a way towards their own initiative at sustainably managed fisheries. 

The facility they need is buying capital and collecting ponds for gravid and undersized juvenile swimming blue crabs (lambay).

Guindacpan fishermen's daily haul include lambay: some undersized and some gravid female crabs. 

According to the town resource management program, gravid and undersized crabs must be released to allow them to mature or to hatch to repopulate. 

Or, in some areas here, crab buyers try to get hold of these undersized juveniles or gravid crabs to mature in a collecting pool or for a hatchery.

Many of the gravid and undersized juveniles however end up in commercial vendors stalls in markets. 

Without local buying stations and collecting pond, fishermen could be tempted to overharvest the juveniles and the gravid, leaving the seas in sorrier state, fishermen revealed. 

"Buying these undersized and gravid females from the fishers to allow them to mature and hatch in captivity increases our chances of sustainability, admits Romulo Pendon, an official of the local fisherfok organization there. 

Pendon, 40 years old, father and member of Guindacpan Growers of Seaweeds Seedlings Organization (GGOSSO) added that their organization may be able to manage the facility if the government helps them. 

Pendon, who, along with his fishermen members have also managed the Guindacpan Marine Protected Area are now into seaweeds farming, if only to lessen the stress on fishing. 

Without buying stations which buys at a competitive price, poaching fishermen would be forced to sell their catch to vendors and this could dent largely on their island's goal of sustainable and better community resource-managed crab fisheries, Pendon aired.

"I have seen the ones they land in Pasil in Cebu, many of the crabs are gravid and undersized," he admitted.

"The netted juveniles can be held in ponds to mature, and in a few days, these can be sold at optimum price," he explained in Cebuano. 

The island barangay of Guindacpan sits on the southwestern tip of Calituban Island of the outer bank of the Dajahon Bank. 

On its opposite stretch, several nautical miles away lie a blue crab hatchery. 

A fertile ground for Central Visayan fisheries, Danajon bank supports teeming marine life especially in the islands and islets that dot the reefs. 

But a shared fishing ground for 16 towns and a city, Danajon Bank covers four provinces and two regions: 7 and 8. 

For region 7, the 10 towns sharing in it as its fishing grounds are in 8 from Bohol and 2 in Cebu. For region 8, 4 towns belong to Leyte and 1 city in Southern Leyte. 

With majority of these towns depending on the sea for their people's protein requirement, Danajon has seen the strain on its fisheries. 

By crabbing to ease up local dependence to fishing, Pendon and several hundred fishermen in Danajon have started to look at ways to help their overburdened their seas. 

Pendon, his lean and dark muscled arms glinting in the midday sun, said in his younger days, a brief paddle-out to sea and his traps get him about 15 kilos of swimming blue crabs. 

Recently however, even at neap tides when crabs would be easy to get and are aplenty, his trip from early morning to lunchtime nets him between 7 to 8 kilos, many of these crabs he gets are either undersized juveniles or gravid and should be released back to grow. 

With live crabs sold between 180 to 190 a kilo, a fisherman and his helpers can still get over P300 a day.

But fishermen still need to bring their catch to the buying stations which is far from Guindacpan, selling gravid crabs to commercial buyers for Cebu appear to be a better option. 

The blue crab issue is however a bit of the Guindacpan fishermen's problems. 

Fishermen from nearby islands poach in their waters and leave their traps or lay their long nets, competing in the catch, and still sell these crabs instead of releasing them, making the island community even at a losing end. 

"We hope the government can help us help ourselves, while we help in making nature recover, Pendon capped. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

Talibon fishers organization receive nylon ropes to hang their seaweeds as BFAR and the Talibon local government led by Mayor Restituto Auxtero campaign for lesser stress to the seas to allow the fish to recover. Crab fishing and seaweeds farming has people in the islands preoccupied. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol