Opportunities and Challenges to Fisheries Policy in the Philippines Today

A framework on the structure and dynamics of fisheries management is described. It is used to identify four opportunities and two challenges for fisheries policy in the Philippines if it were to rationally harness fisheries as fulcrum for sustainable food and protein security in the country in the next 10-30 years. This is, when climate conditions in the country (and in the world) may reach ireversible changes per some reports. Four specific recommendations on the focusing policies are presented if the Philippines were to achieve a more environmentally-anchored (“greener”) management of fisheries: reconciling and balancing public and private sector interests over fisheries; providing incentives for “green investments” on fisheries; ensuring the economic and ecological sustainability of culture fisheries as a pressure-easing complement to capture fisheries, and rationalizing land use to improve the viability of culture fisheries.