In Asia, destructive fishing gives way to ecotourism

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY—Fisherman Abner Abrigo used to enjoy feasting on dolphins and turtles until he realized they were more valuable as tourist attractions.

The wiry 28-year-old said eating dolphin “adobo” style had been his top choice.

Now, Abrigo and others from a small fishing community in Palawan help to take visitors dolphin watching.

“The extra money from the dolphin watching makes a big difference to our livelihoods,” Abrigo told AFP from a dock in Palawan’s capital, Puerto Princesa.

Across Asia, similar types of micro-businesses are offering local communities financial incentives to protect their environments as they take advantage of the region’s small but growing “ecotourism” industry.

Members of the ethnic Qiang minority in mountainous southwest China are selling meals made from organic produce to visitors, while in Indonesia locals are taking tourists from rainforest eco-lodges to meet endangered orangutans.

The travel industry and governments are also responding to the rising demand for “green” travel, with Cambodia recently becoming the first Southeast Asian nation to commit to the Global Sustainable Tourism Council’s principles.

On the Internet, travellers have a myriad of choices from tour operators promoting “sustainable” holidays, including offers to buy carbon credits to offset air travel and to stay at high-end resorts that embrace green practices.

“Ecotourism is a still a niche market but interest is rising,” John Koldowski, deputy chief executive officer of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, told AFP.

“This is driven by an awareness generally in the environment and being green and sustainable, but also in something that’s becoming in short supply in the world—peace, quiet and solitude.”

Government leaders, local communities and non-government organizations in Palawan, one of the Philippines’ most beautiful and biologically diverse islands, have been among the most enthusiastic adopters of eco-tourism in Asia.

While Abrigo still needs to fish to guarantee enough money to survive, other former fishermen elsewhere on Palawan have given up their old jobs altogether to cater for the growing number of tourists.

Edwin Bermejo, 43, confessed to having performed trawl net fishing in Puerto Princesa’s stunning Honda Bay for many years.

Trawl net and other destructive methods of fishing, such as using dynamite and cyanide, have ruined many of Palawan’s precious coral reefs over the past few decades.

“We didn’t understand the results of what we were doing,” he said.

But as fish catches started to dry up and tourists began to arrive in the 1990s, Bermejo said he and other fishermen around Honda Bay realized they needed to change their way of living if they were to survive.