European Journal of Environmental Sciences 61 ISLAND-MAINLAND NEXUS: THE CASE OF THE COASTAL LIVELIHOOD OF TINGLOY ISLAND AND THE SOUTHWESTERN PORTION OF BATANGAS, PHILIPPINES EDGAR M. REYES JR*E. M. Reyes Jr Department of Community and Environmental Resource Planning, College of Human Ecology University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines; Landscape Ecology and Landscape Planning, School of Spatial Planning, Technical University of Dortmund, Pulverstr 23, 44225 Dortmund, Germany * Corresponding author: [email protected] Island-mainland nexus ABSTRACT This research explored the natural resources available to the island municipality of Tingloy, Batangas. It looks at fisheries as the economic resource of an island and how this activity is linked in with the larger economic context of the mainland. Tingloy is a rural settlement the livelihood of which is dependent on fishing and its spatio-economic links with the mainland through fisheries. Fishing is the subsistence economy of Tingloy, with the surplus exported to the mainland. However, a fishery product flow analyses showed that the fishermen of Tingloy are marginalized by the disproportionate distribution of the income in favour of middlemen and fish dealers. Support facilities (such as ports, cold storage, processing units, trading posts, etc.) to further improve the local economy of the island is limited and must be upgraded. Also, transport facilities and other infrastructures to assure the integration of the local-regional economic function of the island municipality must be carefully crafted. Interventions to further improve the local economic condition of the island and its integration with that of the mainland are directed towards improved institutional arrangements, stricter implementation of existing local ordinances, and regional development planning that would take a holistic view and consider the vast resource base of the local government units. Keywords: island-mainland interaction; livelihood; natural resources; spatio-economic linkage; spatial planning Introduction of isolation from the mainland because they are locat- ed far from political and economic centers (CCS et al. Islands provide several unique ecosystem services 2011). In the Philippine archipelagic landscape, there are (provisioning, regulating, supporting, cultural/aesthetic, many small islands the development of which must be etc.) important for the sustained development of a larger properly integrated into the national spatial planning and spatial landscape. According to Agenda 21, small islands development agenda. Many small islands in the Philip- are strategically important environments and the devel- pine archipelago are neglected and little prioritized even opment of their resources need to be properly managed. if they are of outstanding ecological, economic or social The reality that island ecosystems are fragile and vul- value. The problem of human development, subsistence nerable emphasizes the need for island management. economy, land tenure and management, governance and Sustainable island management as an approach will pro- institutional issues are common phenomenon in small vide the means to conserve the natural functions of island island systems in the Pacific (Schoeffel 1996). ecosystems. Furthermore, effective island management The goal of this paper is to show the disparity in the will define the synergistic development of the island and economic resource exchange between an island and the the larger regional spatial landscape it interacts with. mainland in terms of fishery resources using the case of Among the many amenities supplied by the island Tingloy Island municipality and the Southwestern Bat- ecosystem include fishery resources that sustain the angas province in the Philippines. livelihood of local communities. A study on the Pacific Coast of North America by Fitzhugh and Kennett (2010) shows two concurrent major factors in the small-island The Island of Tingloy in the context the and mainland interaction over time: (1) the degree of so- Southwestern Batangas (mainland) cio-economic self-sufficiency of island populations and (2) the nature of resource distribution and the socio-po- The natural coastal/marine resources of Tingloy Island litical dynamics. Issues of island isolation emerge if con- Islands are usually rich sources of fishery products. sequences of these interactions are not resolved. Howev- This is true, especially for Pacific islands, including the er, another more relevant dilemma is the consequence of archipelago of the Philippines, an area that is teeming the distribution of the gains from which inequality em- with a rich marine biodiversity. Various fish stocks are anates. The centre-periphery continuum is very evident harvested by the fishermen in this municipality and this in the context of an island-mainland spatial interaction is affected in several ways: (a) although a wide array of (Grydehoj 2014). fish are present, the actual catch of each fish stock also In addition, the government pays little or no attention varies and changes based on what is actually available; to small island systems leading to the continuing threat (b) the catch is very much attuned to the daily survival of Reyes Jr, E. M.: Island-mainland nexus: the case of the coastal livelihood of Tingloy Island and the southwestern portion of Batangas, Philippines European Journal of Environmental Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 61–68 https://doi.org/10.14712/23361964.2018.9 © 2018 The Author. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. EJES_01_18_5925.indd 61 11.06.18 14:03 62 E. M. Reyes Jr the fishermen, who characteristically maintain a small- The challenges for Tingloy Island scale fishing activity (Smith et al. 1983); and (c) the har- The traditional fishing technologies used by the island vest of fish by the fishermen of Tingloy is very variable population are not seen as a challenge; however, with the because they use traditional fishing gear/equipment. An limiting of the areas that can be harvested and encroach- estimated 105 tons of fishery resources (75 tons of fish ment of fishermen from other municipalities, some fish- and 30 tons of squid) are harvested by the island munic- ermen opt to use motorized and large-scale fishing activ- ipality of Tingloy. ities in order to survive. The introduction of new fishing Barangay (the term used to specify the smallest po- methods frequently leads to a decline in fish stocks and litical unit in the Philippines, is equivalent to a village) the impoverishment of many traditional subsistence coastal water fishing is especially relevant as they use fishermen (Quinn 2009). In addition, the monsoon dic- non-motorized boats and shoreline fishing. The common tates the kinds of fish in the fishing grounds since fish fishing grounds of the majority of the fishermen on Tin- are highly dependent on wave action and direction of the gloy are the easternmost and westernmost parts of the prevailing wind. island, and the open waters of Balayan Bay, Batangas Bay The other problem with this economic resource is and the Verde Island Passage (Fig. 1). that freshly caught products must be sold to middlemen, There are a variety of fish stocks available and har- because of the lack of electricity on the islands prevents vested in the fishing grounds surrounding the island the fishermen storing and further processing their catch. (Table 1). The reef fish and other seafood (squid, octo- These limits are imposed disproportionately by people pus, etc.) in the fishing grounds surrounding the island with strong ties to urban and big city populations who di- are the source of the main harvest. According to the fish- rect the development of rural island economies (Lichter ermen of Tingloy, the catch of fish during the months of and Brown 2011). The limits in terms of facilities result in November to May (Amihan season) is better than in the island communities suffering from the unbalanced finan- rest of a year. This is due to the prevailing winds/mon- cial distribution of their resources. soon influencing the capacity of fishermen to harvest The local fishermen must be encouraged to form co- fish (Alix 1976; Castillo 2011) and it has a huge effect on operatives and organize themselves to maximize their the availability of the marine biodiversity for harvesting, earnings from the products they sell. The significant ef- especially in the case of the Philippine archipelago (Ba- fect of fishery cooperatives on fish income reveals that rut et al. 2003). fishery cooperatives do serve their purpose by improving Fig. 1 Map showing the location of Tingloy Island and the Southwestern Portion of Batangas, Philippines. European Journal of Environmental Sciences, Vol. 8, No. 1 EJES_01_18_5925.indd 62 11.06.18 14:03 Island-mainland nexus 63 Table 1 List of the main fish stocks harvested in Tingloy waters during the monsoon season. Fish Stocks/Species (Local Names*) Northeast Monsoon (Amihan) Southwest Monsoon (Habagat) goby (burot-burot), yellowtail fusilier (dalagang bukid/buglaw), scad (galunggong), skipjack tuna (gulyasan), flat needlefish (kambabalo), sur- geon fish (labahita), flying fish (bolador/lagidlid), grouper (lapu-lapu), long- = = jawed mackerel (alumahan), purse-eyed scad (matangbaka), red snapper (maya-maya), trevally/jack/cavalla