Lapu-Lapu supply fast running out

MANILA, Philippines - The succulent Lapu-Lapu has always been part of the menu.  So, what will a Chinese restaurant be without it?

Global conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) held a summit recently in Palawan to seek measures that will avert an impending shortage in the supply of Lapu-Lapu.

WWF noted that 40 years of unregulated cyanide and dynamite fishing plus a rising trend to target vulnerable spawning areas of Lapu-Lapu, especially in Palawan, “is threatening wild stocks with total collapse.”

“Unless we preserve remaining wild stocks today, Palawan’s fisheries will not be able to replenish and will collapse by 2020,” said Dr. Geoffrey Muldoon, live reef fish strategy leader for WWF’s Coral Triangle Program.

Palawan and its territorial waters host some of the most productive yet exploited fisheries on earth, according to WWF.

The Lapu-Lapu (name of Cebu’s legendary chieftain) or grouper is Asia’s most marketable reef fish, fetching up to P6, 000 per piece in Hong Kong and Singapore, WWF said.

Since the 1970s, the group said live grouper, snapper and wrasse have been gracing the restaurants of many Asian nation especially inHong Kong, Singapore and mainland China, where it is believed that fish kept alive just moments before cooking is not only more savory but will lead to a longer life.

WWF noted that Palawan’s waters supply 50 to 55 percent of the country’s seafood requirement, generating an income of over P4 billion for the local economy each year.

“The annual grouper yield is immense. Last year, local fishermen reeled in over 700 metric tons to bring in P1.26 billion in revenues. Unfortunately, we’ve estimated the sustainable yield to be no more than 140 metric tons, meaning the yearly take is five times more than what can be harvested,” Muldoon explained.

During the one-day sustainable live reef summit the other day, WWF, BFAR and PCSD helped locals to develop solutions to forestall the looming crisis in Lapu-Lapu supply. These measures include practical accreditation processes, quotas, levies, surveillance and monitoring systems.

WWF said that, at present, there is no comprehensive scheme to regulate the live reef fish trade, which supports over a hundred thousand people in Palawan alone, with most having no alternative livelihood.

“Local communities are delivery systems for conservation. The stakeholders of Palawan have created a watershed moment. The agreements arrived at… have been based on a recognition of the realities of over fishing, human footprint and climate change. In a sense, this is true transformation,” said Lorenzo Tan, vice-chairman and CEO of WWF.

The live reef fish summit has brought together local government units, fishermen and traders to discuss sustainable management strategies for their fisheries, aiming to establish synergy between traders from other live reef fish hubs such as Malaysia and Indonesia, the WWF said.

Gregg Yan, media and communications officer of WWF-Philippines, said the most significant outcome of the summit was a pledge to reduce the annual grouper quota by 25 percent to 516 metric tons per annum, or roughly a million half-kilogram Lapu-Lapu.

Yan said a crucial stakeholder alliance was forged between fish traders and local governments to work as one in implementing this quota system and other sustainability initiatives.

“WWF believes in the synergy of environmentalism and economics. Our goal is to work with local communities to export the first batch of sustainably caught wild grouper by June of 2010. Once successful, we can replicate the process in other areas,” Muldoon pointed out.

Citing surveys, Muldoon said that 60 percent of all groupers taken from Palawan’s reefs are juveniles, an indication that adults have been heavily depleted and that as a whole, the ecosystem has been “badly over fished.”

WWF said less than five percent of Philippine-caught groupers are sold locally, as these were often rejected by foreign importers.

Groupers are mostly solitary–often lethargic looking–reef predators from the family Serranidae, according to the world conservation organization.

There  are 161 species of groupers, with 20 recently classified by the IUCN as threatened with extinction.

WWF said all groupers are captured for either the aquarium or food trade.

WWF also said that majority of groupers sourced locally are taken from the wild, as current technology to breed and raise high-value marine fish such as Leopard Trout and the CITES-protected Humphead Wrasse is still several years off.