Socioeconomic impacts of fishing livelihoods in Davao Gulf, Philippines

Welcome! This website documents my experience during my professional practice as part of the IMBRSea graduate program. My professional practice centered around socioeconomic interview data as part of the Regional Integrated Coastal Resource Management Center's vulnerability assessment in Mati, Philippines.

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The Beautiful Island of Mindanao

Located in the south of the country, Mindanao is the second largest island of the Philippines. The island is known for its agricultural commodities.

My Professional Practice was located in the Davao Oriental Region in the city of Mati. It is a three hour drive from the largest city, Davao City, and airport on the island.

Professional Practice Work

Prior to starting the IMBRSea program, I had been involved with a few different socio-economic projects. This opportunity seemed like the perfect chance to expand on my what I had learned in those previous experiences and apply the IMBRSea curriculum so far.

Regional Integrated Coastal Resource Management Center

The Regional Integrated Coastal Resource Management Center was established in 2009 as one of five other monitoring centers by the ICRM Steering Committee. This one is only one on the southern Filipino island of Mindanao.

The center's vision is to ensure the effective management of coastal resources in the local area which will result in increased income for the coastal communities in this region. The center has three main programs: Biodiversity and Coastal Resources Management, Institutional and Community Outreach, and Training and Curriculum Development.

Vulnerability Assessment

The data I worked with was linked to the Regional Management Center's Vulnerability Assessment. In February 2020, my supervisor published this paper as part of an earlier assessment, Climate change vulnerability and perceived impacts on small-scale fisheries in eastern Mindanao. Continuing in the same field as the paper, socio-economic interviews were conducted of 220 fishermen from different Barangays (coastal communities) in the Davao Oriental region.

Professional Practice Tasks

I directly worked under the Fisheries Catch Assessment Project specifically the fisheries vulnerabilities assessment. The vulnerabilities project aims, through community outreach and interviews, to understand and assess the direct threats to fishing industries in local communities. Prior to my arrival and during the PP, the vulnerabilities assessment interviewed different fishing communities to understand the observed changes and impacts that directly effect that area's catches and livelihoods.

Processing this data was the core of my internship tasks. I was very excited for the task because my previous experience with socio economic assessments had only been in the data collection phase. It was my first time processing raw data and running the statistical analysis. The skills required for my role are extremely valuable for my future studies and thesis work.

Methodology

Cleaned Data

- Removed outliers and streamlined data

Organized and Extracted Variables

- Divided data into specific information components to focus on: CPUE, Climate Change Impacts, Climate Change Vulnerabilities

Created Figures

- CPUE vs Other Variables
- Percentages of Climate Change Impacts & Vulnerabilities Responses
- Average Catch vs Other Variables

Statistical Analysis

- PCA of Climate Change of Impacts and Vulnerabilities
- Multiple Linear Analysis of CPUE data

SOCIO ECONOMIC TRENDS OF INTERVIEW AND CLIMATE CHANGE DATA

Conclusions

Climate Change Impacts and Vulnerabilities

•Both social and financial issues such as inadequate food, food insecurity, and lack of credit could all result in a decrease in catches or an inability to venture further for adequate catches resulting in decrease.

•A variety of ecosystem changes, natural disasters, flooding, and sea level change can result in ecological issues, decrease in catches,and having to venture to other/further sites.

•Changing weather patterns and generally hotter temperatures can be linked to less seasonality and changes in reproduction instigated potentially by the variety of climate change vulnerabilities and sources.

CPUE

•CPUE, revenue, years in community seem to have a positive correlation. As CPUE increases, revenue and years in the community do as well.

•Though it seem that CPUE, age and average fishing costs seem to have a negative correlation. As age of the fisher increases, CPUE decreases. As well as, the more money a fisher spends on their average fishing costs the CPUE decreases.

Field Work

8 Days, 14 Barangays

Once CO-VID restrictions began to lift, I was able to join in on field work excursions over the span of two weeks. For four days each week, we would visit two Barangays (coastal communities) per day to survey fishers.

Field Sites

The field sites were located along Davao Gulf, Pujada Bay, and Mayo Bay in the Davao Oriental Region. It was a great experience to visit the fishing communities as it gave context to the socio economic data I had been processing. I could see first hand how different factors drive the fishing culture and therefore, influenced the data I was working on.

Species Confirmation Survey

The national language is Tagalog, but on the island of Mindanao, Bisaya is widely spoken. However, regionally there are other dialects, such as Mindaya, are also spoken. Therefore, it was important to confirm the names of the different species in the local languages so that the catch data is accurate.

We used a booklet of 140 images of common fish species. Fishers would confirm or tell us the different names used in their dialect at each of the Barangays. Only separated by a few kilometers, it was very interesting to see the differences in species names in each community. The further south we surveyed, the greater amount of name differences we observed.

Species Disappearance Survey

The second week of fieldwork's goal was to understand which species, in communities that have not been previously surveyed, were disappearing from catches. Again, we used a booklet with images of 60 of the most common commercial fish species in the area and interviewed fishers to specify which species have been diminishing within their catches. Their age, years in the profession, age, fishing depth, methods, and catch equipment was also recorded.

For this round of surveying, due to the subjectivity of the questions and language barrier I was unable to interview the fishers. Regardless, it was a great experience to accompany my co workers and visit the different fishing communities.

Thank you to everyone at Davao Oriental State College and the Regional Integrated Coastal Resource Management Center that made this a memorable experience.

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