Reconsidering Blast Fishing within a World System: A Civil War and Development in the Southern Philippines

10.6641/PICCFC.91012.2011.12.17

JunAKAMINE

中華飲食文化學術研討會論文集

第12屆（2011 / 11 / 01）

353 - 368

英文

The coral reef is one of the most important ＂common heritages of mankind＂ which fosters marine biodiversity. However, world coral reefs are facing deterioration or destruction. One of the causes is blast fishing. It is a common fishing method carried out in the southern portion of the South China Sea. This paper examines the socio-economic and socio-political history of the blast fishing industry in the Spratly Islands with reference to the dried fish industry in the southern Philippines. The paper describes not only fisheries but also their background and discusses why and how they have developed in the context of Philippine history. For this purpose, commodity flows are focused upon in particular: what kind of fish is targeted and how and who consumes the catch. Blast fishing in the Spratly Islands is practiced with fishery fleets frequenting the area from southwestern Philippines with 18 to 20 crewmembers on board. They engage in 2-month fishing expeditions with each trip costing at least five thousand dollars. The catch is often limited to Caesio spp., which is not consumed by the fishermen. The catch is processed into salt-preserved dried fish, and the dried product is shipped and traded at Mindanao Island where the inland plantations owned by global agro-capitalists produce dollar-earning crops such as coconut, banana, and pineapple. Farmers and laborers working at these plantations depend on dried fish, caught by this destructive method, for their animal protein. Furthermore, the fishermen also occupy a low social status. They are refugees from the conflicts in the 1970s between the Muslim rebels and the central government. The issue is a rather negative legacy created through nation building of the Republic of the Philippines against Spanish colonization and development of Mindanao under US or Japanese regimes. Needless to say, the destruction of coral reef is ecologically problematic, and there is good reason to accuse fishing practices. However, it is not enough to accuse the fishermen because they only belong to a more socio-economically and socio-politically complicated system. In order to solve this destructive practice, it is necessary 'to better understand the domino effect, or ＂web of causality＂, that forms the blast fishing industry in the Philippines.