Notes from a vanishing shore

TWN \| THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE \| ARCHIVE
THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE
Notes from a vanishing shore Amid overfishing, urbanisation and climate change, Filipino artisanal fishing communities are fighting to maintain their way of life. Sigrid Marianne Gayangos This story originally appeared in Earth Island Journal. THE ferry slipped out of Dumaguete’s city port just before dawn. On the roof deck, I joined the scattered silhouettes of morning people, each of us drawn there by an unspoken desire to greet the sea. I breathed deeply, greedily, each inhale a cool balm easing the back of my throat and each exhale exiting as a faint fog. I was heading back home, to Zamboanga, a city on another island some 16 hours south of the Philippines’ Central Visayas region, where I had once lived. This particular return weighed heavily on me. As the ferry cut through the waves, I found myself thinking of my ancestors who had once travelled these same waters, moving from one coastal home to another across the country’s islands in search of better fishing grounds – guided only by knowledge passed down among navigators in their communities and the very real need to provide food for the family. The whisper of the breeze and the gentle rocking of the ferry seemed to carry echoes of their existence, drifting like the sea’s own breath, reminding me of the threads that still bound me to them. I grew up immersed in seafaring tales. I heard stories of how, once, after enduring days with no substantial catch, my maternal grandfather and his brother ventured out on the cold, open waters off their fishing village in Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao. When they returned, my great-uncle developed a fever and severe cough. By the time they sought help, it was too late. A month after he died, news spread through their fishing village that those who ventured farther south to the Zamboanga Peninsula were met with bountiful catches. The same news had reached my paternal grandparents in the village of Iloilo, in the Western Visayas, which inspired them to make the journey as well. In the 1950s, both families settled in Zamboanga, unaware that they would be among the last generations of artisanal fisherfolk in their lines. As the ferry hummed along, I wondered how these landscapes had shaped us – and what it means to stay rooted when those very landscapes begin to vanish. ********** The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,641 islands located at the heart of the Coral Triangle – the richest and most diverse marine ecosystem in the world, which also spans parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. Its vast, discontinuous coastline – totalling 36,289 kilometres – is one of the longest in the world. Fishing has long been a vital source of livelihood in the triangle, and our culture remains deeply entwined with the sea. More than 85% of the country’s two million fisherfolk are artisanal: small-scale fishers who depend on coastal waters for both income and food. In fact, these fishers supply nearly half of the Philippines’ total fish catch, a market valued at around $981 million. Yet, according to research by the marine conservation organisation Rare Philippines, these fishing families are also among the country’s most marginalised. They typically live below the poverty line and are often buried in debt. My maternal grandfather’s life was no different: relentless labour, long hours, unpredictable catches, and a constant battle against the elements. Determined to spare his children such hardship, he had discouraged anyone from following in his footsteps. My grandparents managed to put all their children through college, and in time, his wish was fulfilled. None of them would go on to fish for a living. On my father’s side, nearly everyone in the family had worked as fishers, fish truck drivers or ferry porters. My father’s youth was spent balancing studies with shifts in a fish-processing warehouse. He was the only one among 13 siblings to earn a university degree. He, too, vowed that none of his children would endure the struggles he had faced. My father became a schoolteacher, and my mother, a fulltime homemaker. Though my parents briefly dabbled in buying and selling fish when I was in grade school, my siblings and I never truly knew the physical toll or the precariousness that had defined their labour. These days, this way of life has become even more precarious due to decades of environmental degradation, chronic overfishing and rapid urbanisation of the country’s coastlines. Climate change and its knock-on effects – unpredictable weather patterns, stronger typhoons and ocean acidification – which are further eroding marine ecosystems and shifting fish migration routes, have added another layer of vulnerability to the life of coastal fishers. A few months before I got on this ferry, I visited six coastal communities in Dumaguete to meet with villagers opposing a proposed 174-hectare land-reclamation project on the island. The project, marketed by the city mayor’s office as a ‘smart city’ with mixed-use development, promised to upgrade Dumaguete from a ‘Third-Class City’ to a ‘Highly Urbanised City’. We gathered in huts by the port and on bancas (small boats) bobbing in the shallows, sharing meals, exchanging stories and reflecting on how coastal life had changed. ‘I used to dive for sea urchins with my father,’ an elderly fisherman in Binisaya told me. He asked to remain anonymous, like many others I spoke with. Many people in these communities relied on seasonal jobs from the city mayor’s office and feared that speaking out could cost them work. The elder fisher talked of his first taste of the briny, buttery custard-of-the-sea, a flicker of wonder still in his voice. ‘There used to be tide timetables printed on the calendars we hung in our homes. But even without those, I learned to read the tides by watching how the water licked the mangroves.’ A mother of four shared: ‘When I was a girl, we used to jump from boats into clear water, swim until our limbs grew tired, then go home to cook the day’s catch. There was always enough. We even had extra to sell.’ Though not a Dumaguete local myself, my family’s life in Zamboanga mirrored theirs. Much like my family, many here too had moved from one coast to another in search of better catches. As people in these communities welcomed me into their homes, I shared stories in return: of how my grandparents journeyed to Zamboanga; of growing up in a family compound that smelled strongly of brined fish drying in the sun; and of how, for a couple of years, I’d carry pails of fish through the neighbourhood in my pristine white school uniform to help my parents sell their stock. I may have gone on to pursue a different path entirely, but these memories tether me still. Today, one doesn’t see too many overflowing pails of fish being carried around neighbourhoods. Small-scale fishers around the country manage to catch only 5 kg of fish a day on average, according to the Philippine Statistics Agency. That’s a 90% decline from the 50 kg a day they used to pull up from the sea in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Philippines’ coral reefs were healthy and highly productive. Fishers are now forced to venture farther out at sea and spend more hours and resources just to secure a modest catch. Various studies estimate that not only have 70% of the country’s waters and major fishing grounds been overfished, but several species have also disappeared altogether. ‘Illegal commercial fishing inside municipal waters and overfishing have long plagued Philippine waters, depleting fish stocks and degrading marine ecosystems,’ Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of the marine conservation group Oceana Philippines, said in a February statement raising alarm about the state of the country’s fisheries. ‘These practices threaten biodiversity and can trigger the collapse of essential fish populations,’ she added. ‘The unabated exploitation of these resources and the often aggressive, destructive and illegal fishing practices of commercial operators endanger the future of our fisheries and the communities that rely on them.’ ********** I had always felt an unshakable connection to the sea and fisherfolk. Growing up in Zamboanga, we would buy the day’s catch directly from fishermen returning to shore, their pump-boats heavy with the scent of salt, fish and gasoline. The seaside was where I wandered after lighting candles at the nearby Fort Pilar, a place to grieve in private, to whisper my deepest wishes to the wind. It was where I stood, time and again, to say too many goodbyes, watching loved ones disappear over the horizon and hoping they would find their way back. We’ve been taught to think that this kind of subsistence lifestyle might soon be a thing of the past, but my heart finds it hard to believe that a whole way of being that has been for eons the mainstay of this country’s socioeconomic culture can disappear in a matter of years. But the fact is, the disenfranchisement of fisherfolk did not happen overnight. Small-scale fishers began being pushed to the margins decades ago, as commercial fishing took hold in the Philippines. In the 1950s to 1970s, artisanal fishing had still been a viable livelihood, but by the 1980s, it was nearly impossible for independent fishers to compete with industrial fishing vessels that monopolised the waters. Many had no choice but to leave the trade and find other means of survival. It was not by choice that the line of fisherfolk in my family ended a generation or two before me; it was by necessity. When I asked my mother what moment solidified for her that our family’s fisherfolk life had truly come to an end, she paused before recalling the day the family kamalig (fish-processing warehouse) was finally torn down in 2015, a year after my grandmother passed. ‘When the last columns of the kamalig fell, we found seahorses and coins stashed in them. For good luck,’ she said. ‘But the luck only lasted a few decades, it seems. The kamalig had to shut down. Just like your Lolo’s [grandfather’s] entire fishing line.’ Built in the 1960s within our family compound, the warehouse had once been a vital space, not just for us but for many fishers in the community. They’d lay out their fish to dry there, and stored their catch in labelled boxes in the shared space. At a time when few homes had refrigeration, dried fish was in constant demand. But by the 1990s, the entire fish trade was already running at a loss. The dismantling of the building, two decades later, felt to her like a quiet farewell to a lineage of wandering, sea-bound lives. It was painful, she admitted, but also came with a complicated sense of relief. ‘Perhaps it’s for the better,’ she told me. ‘Maybe the next generations won’t have to live such hard lives.’ Among those who hung on to this way of life, many began to resort to blast fishing – hurling handmade bottle bombs into the sea to stun or kill a large number of fish quickly. While this did help them harvest more fish, the practice is highly destructive. It kills the entire marine food chain, including juvenile fish, plankton and the coral reefs that the fish depend on. By 1998, when a combination of unregulated fish-bombing and commercial fishing had wrecked significant portions of the country’s 10,500 square miles of coral reefs and severely depleted coastal fish populations, the Filipino government introduced the Philippine Fisheries Code. The law bans the use of explosives and poisonous substances like sodium cyanide, and the use of fine mesh nets, trawling and purse seine techniques, as well as gill nets, air compressors and tuna longlines within municipal waters. These waters, extending 15 kilometres from shore, are among the most productive marine zones. They are home to coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves that serve as breeding grounds for marine life. The goal of the ban was to protect near-shore spawning areas, which would in the long run benefit not only the environment but also fishers. However, enforcing these regulations across the country’s vast coastline proved difficult. The situation got so bad that in 2013, the European Union issued a stern warning to the Philippines: It would be banned from exporting to the bloc (which at the time brought in about $165 million in revenue) unless its fishing activities were better regulated. In response, the country produced a new fisheries code that called for stricter measures against illegal methods and commercial overfishing and stipulated that only artisanal fishers could fish inside the country’s municipal waters. While this has had some positive impact, curbing illegal fishing continues to be a challenge for authorities. A recent joint report by the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the USAID Fish Right programme estimates that illegal fishing costs municipalities 257,000 to 402,000 metric tons of catch per year, valued at $482.4 million to $756.8 million. ******** As the Philippines works to address overfishing, another threat is quietly remapping its shores: land reclamation. These projects – which create new land by dredging up sediment and depositing it into coastal waters – have surged in recent years, putting further pressure on fragile marine ecosystems and displacing coastal communities. Under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte (2016–22), reclamation efforts saw unprecedented expansion. At least 45 projects were approved, mostly through public-private partnerships. This surge was partly enabled by an executive order that transferred the authority to approve reclamation projects from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Philippine Reclamation Authority under the Office of the President. The move raised concerns among environmental and fisherfolk groups, including Pamalakaya-Pilipinas, the National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organization in the Philippines, which warned that fast-tracking these approvals would accelerate the destruction of marine habitats and the eviction of shoreline communities. Today, there are over 187 reclamation projects across the country, both proposed and ongoing. Of these, only 16 have been officially approved. The rest are in varying stages of planning or development. The scope of these projects is wide: New land is being created to make room for housing, malls, airports, luxury hotels and business districts, and they are often marketed as solutions to urban congestion and economic stagnation. But environmentalists warn that these initiatives threaten to erase coastal biodiversity. In Metro Manila, for instance, the highly contested Manila Bay reclamation project envisions new commercial and residential zones but has drawn backlash for its potential to displace fishing families and disrupt marine life. Contrary to claims by local officials that Manila Bay is ‘dead’, its waters remain a vital habitat for fish, mangroves and migratory birds – and a lifeline for thousands of fishers. Commonly caught species like sardines, mackerel, squid and blue crab rely on the bay’s spawning grounds, which these dump-and-fill projects risk obliterating. According to Oceana Philippines, the fisheries industry alone accounts for 67% of Manila Bay’s total economic value. Similar proposals have surfaced in other cities and provinces around the Philippines, including Cavite, Cebu, Bacolod and Bulacan. At a November 2024 meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Bong Binosa, a fisherfolk leader from a coastal community in Cavite province, described how drastically life has changed since reclamation projects began in the area. ‘Life in our community used to be really good. Abundant fish catch and a peaceful environment,’ he shared. ‘Now, with these reclamation projects, the fish supply at the market has become seasonal.’ Cavite, once the biggest supplier of mussels, oysters and other shellfish to Metro Manila and much of Luzon island, where Manila is located, is now seeing a sharp decline in harvests. Critics of the projects say they also increase the risk posed to coastal communities from flooding and storms linked to climate change by depleting coastal wetlands and mangrove forests that slow storm surges and soil erosion. At the same time, research has linked increased groundwater extraction due to the developments to subsidence in the urban sprawl around Manila Bay, which is home to the country’s capital and some 23 million people. Even relatively small projects, like Dumaguete City’s own ferry port in Barangay Looc, have caused irreversible damage to the marine ecosystem. Built in stages between the 1910s and the 1930s, the Dumaguete pier was one of the city’s earliest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, connecting Dumaguete to 11 nearby islands and facilitating regional commerce. But its legacy is complicated. Its construction led to the degradation of coastal habitats, and its continued expansion has further altered the seafloor and disturbed coral and seagrass ecosystems that used to be abundant in the area. ‘Reclamations damage not just the areas being backfilled but those from where the backfilling materials are sourced as well,’ Gary Rosales, a representative of the environmental groups Kinaiyahan and Friends of the Environment in Negros Oriental, told me via email. ‘When done along coastal areas, especially when no meaningful discussion and public consultation is conducted, reclamation projects not only destroy adjacent marine habitats but also result in social inequity wherein artisanal fishermen and their families are deprived of either their fishing or gleaning grounds and the nursery of commercially important marine species.’ While strong community opposition has successfully halted some high-profile proposals – like Dumaguete’s 174-hectare ‘Smart City’ – many reclamation efforts across the country have continued under other names. In recent years, some places have been reclaiming coastal areas by building boardwalks and calling it shoreline protection, a practice flagged multiple times by the Philippine Reclamation Authority. And even in Dumaguete, after the smart city proposal was shelved, officials quietly repackaged parts of the plan as piecemeal coastal defence projects. But environmental groups remain vigilant. They continue to resist what they see as the slow erasure of people and places deemed disposable in the name of progress. ****** Last year, a Philippine Supreme Court ruling dealt a further blow to artisanal fishers. In August 2024, the court upheld a lower court decision allowing commercial fishing vessels to operate within 15 kilometres of the coastline, waters that had long been reserved for small-scale fishers under the Fisheries Code. With municipal waters now at risk of exploitation by commercial fleets, the consequences are dire: dwindling fish populations, destruction of spawning grounds, displacement of artisanal fishers and worsening poverty among already-marginalised communities. The ruling also stripped local governments of key regulatory powers, undermining their ability to curb illegal fishing, and it threatens the tourism industry, which relies heavily on healthy coastal ecosystems and vibrant coral reefs. In response, fisherfolk across the country have begun mobilising. On 4 February this year, small-scale fishers from across the Philippines gathered in Quezon City to consolidate their demands and build a common agenda. The assembly called for the protection of municipal waters and stronger recognition of fisherfolk rights, while also addressing broader concerns such as climate impacts, dwindling fish stocks and exploitative market conditions. Weeks later, on 27 February, fishermen marched to the Supreme Court in Manila to contest the court ruling, while at the same time, fluvial protests swept through five towns in Zambales, with demonstrators sailing along municipal waters to assert their claims. Across these coordinated actions, the movement rallied under the cry #AtinAngKinse (‘The 15 Kilometres Are Ours’). These struggles also resonate beyond Philippine shores. In late 2024, Pamalakaya joined 28 other organisations at the World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ general assembly in Brazil, calling for food sovereignty, sustainable fisheries and systemic change. The issues faced by Filipino fishers are shared by small-scale fishing communities around the world. ******** The ferry let out a long, low horn as it neared Zamboanga’s port, the city’s evening skyline emerging beyond the wharf. It was pitch dark but the night sky was streaked with a scattering of lights, like stars flickering on land. The briny smell of the dock wrapped around me like a memory – Zamboanga did still smell like Dumaguete after all. After more than 16 hours at sea, I was finally home. For children like me who grew up in seaside communities, the sea was this unspoken presence that shaped the rhythm of everyday life. Some of us chose to drop anchor elsewhere and built lives away from the coast. But the identity formed by the sea – its fluidity and quiet, unrelenting force – had always stayed with us. Perhaps this was why I strive to capture the sea in all its beauty and terror in my stories, to immortalise some semblance of that life on paper. To capture the coastal lives in my writing is one thing, to have them endure – not as relics of a forgotten world, but as lived realities, protected by those who understand their worth – is quite another. On the shore of Zamboanga, I watched the waves as they rolled in, their motion steady and calm. The waters have been here long before us and will outlast us all. They have given us so much – the least we can do is fight for what remains. Sigrid Marianne Gayangos was born and raised in Zamboanga City, Philippines. Her debut collection, Laut: Stories, was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2022. In the Malayo-Polynesian language of seafarers, laut is the name of the vast ocean, whose shifting currents carried them across countless islands. *Third World Resurgence No. 363, 2025/2, pp 2-6
TWN \| THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE \| ARCHIVE

TWN \| THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE \| ARCHIVE
THIRD WORLD RESURGENCE
Notes from a vanishing shore Amid overfishing, urbanisation and climate change, Filipino artisanal fishing communities are fighting to maintain their way of life. Sigrid Marianne Gayangos This story originally appeared in Earth Island Journal. THE ferry slipped out of Dumaguete’s city port just before dawn. On the roof deck, I joined the scattered silhouettes of morning people, each of us drawn there by an unspoken desire to greet the sea. I breathed deeply, greedily, each inhale a cool balm easing the back of my throat and each exhale exiting as a faint fog. I was heading back home, to Zamboanga, a city on another island some 16 hours south of the Philippines’ Central Visayas region, where I had once lived. This particular return weighed heavily on me. As the ferry cut through the waves, I found myself thinking of my ancestors who had once travelled these same waters, moving from one coastal home to another across the country’s islands in search of better fishing grounds – guided only by knowledge passed down among navigators in their communities and the very real need to provide food for the family. The whisper of the breeze and the gentle rocking of the ferry seemed to carry echoes of their existence, drifting like the sea’s own breath, reminding me of the threads that still bound me to them. I grew up immersed in seafaring tales. I heard stories of how, once, after enduring days with no substantial catch, my maternal grandfather and his brother ventured out on the cold, open waters off their fishing village in Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao. When they returned, my great-uncle developed a fever and severe cough. By the time they sought help, it was too late. A month after he died, news spread through their fishing village that those who ventured farther south to the Zamboanga Peninsula were met with bountiful catches. The same news had reached my paternal grandparents in the village of Iloilo, in the Western Visayas, which inspired them to make the journey as well. In the 1950s, both families settled in Zamboanga, unaware that they would be among the last generations of artisanal fisherfolk in their lines. As the ferry hummed along, I wondered how these landscapes had shaped us – and what it means to stay rooted when those very landscapes begin to vanish. ********** The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,641 islands located at the heart of the Coral Triangle – the richest and most diverse marine ecosystem in the world, which also spans parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste. Its vast, discontinuous coastline – totalling 36,289 kilometres – is one of the longest in the world. Fishing has long been a vital source of livelihood in the triangle, and our culture remains deeply entwined with the sea. More than 85% of the country’s two million fisherfolk are artisanal: small-scale fishers who depend on coastal waters for both income and food. In fact, these fishers supply nearly half of the Philippines’ total fish catch, a market valued at around $981 million. Yet, according to research by the marine conservation organisation Rare Philippines, these fishing families are also among the country’s most marginalised. They typically live below the poverty line and are often buried in debt. My maternal grandfather’s life was no different: relentless labour, long hours, unpredictable catches, and a constant battle against the elements. Determined to spare his children such hardship, he had discouraged anyone from following in his footsteps. My grandparents managed to put all their children through college, and in time, his wish was fulfilled. None of them would go on to fish for a living. On my father’s side, nearly everyone in the family had worked as fishers, fish truck drivers or ferry porters. My father’s youth was spent balancing studies with shifts in a fish-processing warehouse. He was the only one among 13 siblings to earn a university degree. He, too, vowed that none of his children would endure the struggles he had faced. My father became a schoolteacher, and my mother, a fulltime homemaker. Though my parents briefly dabbled in buying and selling fish when I was in grade school, my siblings and I never truly knew the physical toll or the precariousness that had defined their labour. These days, this way of life has become even more precarious due to decades of environmental degradation, chronic overfishing and rapid urbanisation of the country’s coastlines. Climate change and its knock-on effects – unpredictable weather patterns, stronger typhoons and ocean acidification – which are further eroding marine ecosystems and shifting fish migration routes, have added another layer of vulnerability to the life of coastal fishers. A few months before I got on this ferry, I visited six coastal communities in Dumaguete to meet with villagers opposing a proposed 174-hectare land-reclamation project on the island. The project, marketed by the city mayor’s office as a ‘smart city’ with mixed-use development, promised to upgrade Dumaguete from a ‘Third-Class City’ to a ‘Highly Urbanised City’. We gathered in huts by the port and on bancas (small boats) bobbing in the shallows, sharing meals, exchanging stories and reflecting on how coastal life had changed. ‘I used to dive for sea urchins with my father,’ an elderly fisherman in Binisaya told me. He asked to remain anonymous, like many others I spoke with. Many people in these communities relied on seasonal jobs from the city mayor’s office and feared that speaking out could cost them work. The elder fisher talked of his first taste of the briny, buttery custard-of-the-sea, a flicker of wonder still in his voice. ‘There used to be tide timetables printed on the calendars we hung in our homes. But even without those, I learned to read the tides by watching how the water licked the mangroves.’ A mother of four shared: ‘When I was a girl, we used to jump from boats into clear water, swim until our limbs grew tired, then go home to cook the day’s catch. There was always enough. We even had extra to sell.’ Though not a Dumaguete local myself, my family’s life in Zamboanga mirrored theirs. Much like my family, many here too had moved from one coast to another in search of better catches. As people in these communities welcomed me into their homes, I shared stories in return: of how my grandparents journeyed to Zamboanga; of growing up in a family compound that smelled strongly of brined fish drying in the sun; and of how, for a couple of years, I’d carry pails of fish through the neighbourhood in my pristine white school uniform to help my parents sell their stock. I may have gone on to pursue a different path entirely, but these memories tether me still. Today, one doesn’t see too many overflowing pails of fish being carried around neighbourhoods. Small-scale fishers around the country manage to catch only 5 kg of fish a day on average, according to the Philippine Statistics Agency. That’s a 90% decline from the 50 kg a day they used to pull up from the sea in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Philippines’ coral reefs were healthy and highly productive. Fishers are now forced to venture farther out at sea and spend more hours and resources just to secure a modest catch. Various studies estimate that not only have 70% of the country’s waters and major fishing grounds been overfished, but several species have also disappeared altogether. ‘Illegal commercial fishing inside municipal waters and overfishing have long plagued Philippine waters, depleting fish stocks and degrading marine ecosystems,’ Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of the marine conservation group Oceana Philippines, said in a February statement raising alarm about the state of the country’s fisheries. ‘These practices threaten biodiversity and can trigger the collapse of essential fish populations,’ she added. ‘The unabated exploitation of these resources and the often aggressive, destructive and illegal fishing practices of commercial operators endanger the future of our fisheries and the communities that rely on them.’ ********** I had always felt an unshakable connection to the sea and fisherfolk. Growing up in Zamboanga, we would buy the day’s catch directly from fishermen returning to shore, their pump-boats heavy with the scent of salt, fish and gasoline. The seaside was where I wandered after lighting candles at the nearby Fort Pilar, a place to grieve in private, to whisper my deepest wishes to the wind. It was where I stood, time and again, to say too many goodbyes, watching loved ones disappear over the horizon and hoping they would find their way back. We’ve been taught to think that this kind of subsistence lifestyle might soon be a thing of the past, but my heart finds it hard to believe that a whole way of being that has been for eons the mainstay of this country’s socioeconomic culture can disappear in a matter of years. But the fact is, the disenfranchisement of fisherfolk did not happen overnight. Small-scale fishers began being pushed to the margins decades ago, as commercial fishing took hold in the Philippines. In the 1950s to 1970s, artisanal fishing had still been a viable livelihood, but by the 1980s, it was nearly impossible for independent fishers to compete with industrial fishing vessels that monopolised the waters. Many had no choice but to leave the trade and find other means of survival. It was not by choice that the line of fisherfolk in my family ended a generation or two before me; it was by necessity. When I asked my mother what moment solidified for her that our family’s fisherfolk life had truly come to an end, she paused before recalling the day the family kamalig (fish-processing warehouse) was finally torn down in 2015, a year after my grandmother passed. ‘When the last columns of the kamalig fell, we found seahorses and coins stashed in them. For good luck,’ she said. ‘But the luck only lasted a few decades, it seems. The kamalig had to shut down. Just like your Lolo’s [grandfather’s] entire fishing line.’ Built in the 1960s within our family compound, the warehouse had once been a vital space, not just for us but for many fishers in the community. They’d lay out their fish to dry there, and stored their catch in labelled boxes in the shared space. At a time when few homes had refrigeration, dried fish was in constant demand. But by the 1990s, the entire fish trade was already running at a loss. The dismantling of the building, two decades later, felt to her like a quiet farewell to a lineage of wandering, sea-bound lives. It was painful, she admitted, but also came with a complicated sense of relief. ‘Perhaps it’s for the better,’ she told me. ‘Maybe the next generations won’t have to live such hard lives.’ Among those who hung on to this way of life, many began to resort to blast fishing – hurling handmade bottle bombs into the sea to stun or kill a large number of fish quickly. While this did help them harvest more fish, the practice is highly destructive. It kills the entire marine food chain, including juvenile fish, plankton and the coral reefs that the fish depend on. By 1998, when a combination of unregulated fish-bombing and commercial fishing had wrecked significant portions of the country’s 10,500 square miles of coral reefs and severely depleted coastal fish populations, the Filipino government introduced the Philippine Fisheries Code. The law bans the use of explosives and poisonous substances like sodium cyanide, and the use of fine mesh nets, trawling and purse seine techniques, as well as gill nets, air compressors and tuna longlines within municipal waters. These waters, extending 15 kilometres from shore, are among the most productive marine zones. They are home to coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangroves that serve as breeding grounds for marine life. The goal of the ban was to protect near-shore spawning areas, which would in the long run benefit not only the environment but also fishers. However, enforcing these regulations across the country’s vast coastline proved difficult. The situation got so bad that in 2013, the European Union issued a stern warning to the Philippines: It would be banned from exporting to the bloc (which at the time brought in about $165 million in revenue) unless its fishing activities were better regulated. In response, the country produced a new fisheries code that called for stricter measures against illegal methods and commercial overfishing and stipulated that only artisanal fishers could fish inside the country’s municipal waters. While this has had some positive impact, curbing illegal fishing continues to be a challenge for authorities. A recent joint report by the Philippines Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the USAID Fish Right programme estimates that illegal fishing costs municipalities 257,000 to 402,000 metric tons of catch per year, valued at $482.4 million to $756.8 million. ******** As the Philippines works to address overfishing, another threat is quietly remapping its shores: land reclamation. These projects – which create new land by dredging up sediment and depositing it into coastal waters – have surged in recent years, putting further pressure on fragile marine ecosystems and displacing coastal communities. Under the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte (2016–22), reclamation efforts saw unprecedented expansion. At least 45 projects were approved, mostly through public-private partnerships. This surge was partly enabled by an executive order that transferred the authority to approve reclamation projects from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Philippine Reclamation Authority under the Office of the President. The move raised concerns among environmental and fisherfolk groups, including Pamalakaya-Pilipinas, the National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organization in the Philippines, which warned that fast-tracking these approvals would accelerate the destruction of marine habitats and the eviction of shoreline communities. Today, there are over 187 reclamation projects across the country, both proposed and ongoing. Of these, only 16 have been officially approved. The rest are in varying stages of planning or development. The scope of these projects is wide: New land is being created to make room for housing, malls, airports, luxury hotels and business districts, and they are often marketed as solutions to urban congestion and economic stagnation. But environmentalists warn that these initiatives threaten to erase coastal biodiversity. In Metro Manila, for instance, the highly contested Manila Bay reclamation project envisions new commercial and residential zones but has drawn backlash for its potential to displace fishing families and disrupt marine life. Contrary to claims by local officials that Manila Bay is ‘dead’, its waters remain a vital habitat for fish, mangroves and migratory birds – and a lifeline for thousands of fishers. Commonly caught species like sardines, mackerel, squid and blue crab rely on the bay’s spawning grounds, which these dump-and-fill projects risk obliterating. According to Oceana Philippines, the fisheries industry alone accounts for 67% of Manila Bay’s total economic value. Similar proposals have surfaced in other cities and provinces around the Philippines, including Cavite, Cebu, Bacolod and Bulacan. At a November 2024 meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Bong Binosa, a fisherfolk leader from a coastal community in Cavite province, described how drastically life has changed since reclamation projects began in the area. ‘Life in our community used to be really good. Abundant fish catch and a peaceful environment,’ he shared. ‘Now, with these reclamation projects, the fish supply at the market has become seasonal.’ Cavite, once the biggest supplier of mussels, oysters and other shellfish to Metro Manila and much of Luzon island, where Manila is located, is now seeing a sharp decline in harvests. Critics of the projects say they also increase the risk posed to coastal communities from flooding and storms linked to climate change by depleting coastal wetlands and mangrove forests that slow storm surges and soil erosion. At the same time, research has linked increased groundwater extraction due to the developments to subsidence in the urban sprawl around Manila Bay, which is home to the country’s capital and some 23 million people. Even relatively small projects, like Dumaguete City’s own ferry port in Barangay Looc, have caused irreversible damage to the marine ecosystem. Built in stages between the 1910s and the 1930s, the Dumaguete pier was one of the city’s earliest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, connecting Dumaguete to 11 nearby islands and facilitating regional commerce. But its legacy is complicated. Its construction led to the degradation of coastal habitats, and its continued expansion has further altered the seafloor and disturbed coral and seagrass ecosystems that used to be abundant in the area. ‘Reclamations damage not just the areas being backfilled but those from where the backfilling materials are sourced as well,’ Gary Rosales, a representative of the environmental groups Kinaiyahan and Friends of the Environment in Negros Oriental, told me via email. ‘When done along coastal areas, especially when no meaningful discussion and public consultation is conducted, reclamation projects not only destroy adjacent marine habitats but also result in social inequity wherein artisanal fishermen and their families are deprived of either their fishing or gleaning grounds and the nursery of commercially important marine species.’ While strong community opposition has successfully halted some high-profile proposals – like Dumaguete’s 174-hectare ‘Smart City’ – many reclamation efforts across the country have continued under other names. In recent years, some places have been reclaiming coastal areas by building boardwalks and calling it shoreline protection, a practice flagged multiple times by the Philippine Reclamation Authority. And even in Dumaguete, after the smart city proposal was shelved, officials quietly repackaged parts of the plan as piecemeal coastal defence projects. But environmental groups remain vigilant. They continue to resist what they see as the slow erasure of people and places deemed disposable in the name of progress. ****** Last year, a Philippine Supreme Court ruling dealt a further blow to artisanal fishers. In August 2024, the court upheld a lower court decision allowing commercial fishing vessels to operate within 15 kilometres of the coastline, waters that had long been reserved for small-scale fishers under the Fisheries Code. With municipal waters now at risk of exploitation by commercial fleets, the consequences are dire: dwindling fish populations, destruction of spawning grounds, displacement of artisanal fishers and worsening poverty among already-marginalised communities. The ruling also stripped local governments of key regulatory powers, undermining their ability to curb illegal fishing, and it threatens the tourism industry, which relies heavily on healthy coastal ecosystems and vibrant coral reefs. In response, fisherfolk across the country have begun mobilising. On 4 February this year, small-scale fishers from across the Philippines gathered in Quezon City to consolidate their demands and build a common agenda. The assembly called for the protection of municipal waters and stronger recognition of fisherfolk rights, while also addressing broader concerns such as climate impacts, dwindling fish stocks and exploitative market conditions. Weeks later, on 27 February, fishermen marched to the Supreme Court in Manila to contest the court ruling, while at the same time, fluvial protests swept through five towns in Zambales, with demonstrators sailing along municipal waters to assert their claims. Across these coordinated actions, the movement rallied under the cry #AtinAngKinse (‘The 15 Kilometres Are Ours’). These struggles also resonate beyond Philippine shores. In late 2024, Pamalakaya joined 28 other organisations at the World Forum of Fisher Peoples’ general assembly in Brazil, calling for food sovereignty, sustainable fisheries and systemic change. The issues faced by Filipino fishers are shared by small-scale fishing communities around the world. ******** The ferry let out a long, low horn as it neared Zamboanga’s port, the city’s evening skyline emerging beyond the wharf. It was pitch dark but the night sky was streaked with a scattering of lights, like stars flickering on land. The briny smell of the dock wrapped around me like a memory – Zamboanga did still smell like Dumaguete after all. After more than 16 hours at sea, I was finally home. For children like me who grew up in seaside communities, the sea was this unspoken presence that shaped the rhythm of everyday life. Some of us chose to drop anchor elsewhere and built lives away from the coast. But the identity formed by the sea – its fluidity and quiet, unrelenting force – had always stayed with us. Perhaps this was why I strive to capture the sea in all its beauty and terror in my stories, to immortalise some semblance of that life on paper. To capture the coastal lives in my writing is one thing, to have them endure – not as relics of a forgotten world, but as lived realities, protected by those who understand their worth – is quite another. On the shore of Zamboanga, I watched the waves as they rolled in, their motion steady and calm. The waters have been here long before us and will outlast us all. They have given us so much – the least we can do is fight for what remains. Sigrid Marianne Gayangos was born and raised in Zamboanga City, Philippines. Her debut collection, Laut: Stories, was published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2022. In the Malayo-Polynesian language of seafarers, laut is the name of the vast ocean, whose shifting currents carried them across countless islands. *Third World Resurgence No. 363, 2025/2, pp 2-6
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