Fish Right: Strategic Partnerships to Combat Illegal Fishing and Advance Sustainable Fisheries Management

Challenge

The Philippines is recognized as a global center of marine biodiversity. It is ranked as one of the top fishing countries in the world, with an average of 4 million metric tons of fish caught every year. Fish and fish products provide food and livelihood for millions of Filipinos living in coastal communities.

However, marine biodiversity in the Philippines has come under threat due to destructive and illegal fishing practices. The effects are exacerbated by climate change and the degradation of coral reefs and mangrove ecosystems. The decline of key fish stocks has a significant impact on food security and livelihoods.

Solution

The USAID/Philippines Fish Right program aims to address biodiversity threats, improve marine ecosystem governance, advance sustainable fisheries management, and increase fish biomass in key marine areas in the Philippines. As a partner on Fish Right, Resonance builds strategic partnerships with public and private sector actors to combat illegal fishing and advance sustainable fisheries management.

Our activities include:

Mapping Partnership Opportunities and Seafood Value Chains. Resonance is exploring and designing a range of public-private partnerships to advance sustainable fisheries management in the Philippines. In parallel, we have also conducted in-depth value chain analyses for critical fisheries across three regions of the Philippines to understand how these partnerships might fit within and affect the nation’s seafood value chains.

Developing Partnerships That Support Fisheries Management Measures. We are building partnerships that help fishers maintain or grow their incomes even as new measures are put in place to limit pressure on fisheries resources. We are launching partnerships that deploy financial literacy support, conservation enterprise, and microfinance to create new financial safety nets for vulnerable fishers.

Collaboration Across the Fisheries Supply Chain. We are pursuing opportunities to reduce post-harvest loss in key sites to improve the productivity of seafood supply chains, and we are engaging processors and buyers in multi-sectoral collaboration to drive improvement of processing and handling conditions on the ground.

Harnessing Technology for Enforcement and Management. Resonance is exploring a range of innovative technology solutions for sustainable fisheries, including communications platforms to improve coordination for fisheries enforcement and electronic catch documentation and traceability (eCDT) technologies that digitally track fish from point of catch to sale.

Deploying Innovative Financing and Business Models. Resonance is exploring market- and donor-driven financing opportunities to help build resilience by expanding Marine Protected Area (MPA) networks and other marine conservation efforts, as well as to apply value chain financing for sustainable fisheries.

Strategy Development. Resonance is helping Fish Right to craft and implement a proactive communications strategy that promotes and strengthens public-private collaboration for sustainable fisheries management in the Philippines. Resonance is also helping to design and implement a strategy to help Fish Right engage commercial fishers in improved fisheries management.