Fish!!

If you have followed this blog in the past, you will have seen several posts about the Integrated Aquaculture Project here that has occupied most of my working time for the past year or so. It's a project where we are growing seaweeds in concert with Bangus Fish, the Philippine national fish, to generate the livelihood for 35 families in the coastal area here as well as improve understanding and enforcement of local environmental protection laws for a marine protected area. Seaweeds filter water; they utilize nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus to grow carrageenan, an important cash crop the world over. It's known in the environmental field as a bio filter, one of the things that yield a double return, cleaning the environment while producing a useful material. Carrageenan, as I've mentioned here before, is used in laboratory supplies, as well as jelly, Jell-O, toothpaste and many other vitally important products. We can sell seaweed at a local factory, where they pay a base price for the dried product, the profit which is then split up and given back to association members for working every day to clean and harvest the seaweeds. Thus far, the fishermen have made around 8000 pesos ($175) from the seaweed harvests and the stuff is still growing strong. The seaweed is a new idea to most of the members who consider themselves fishermen first and foremost, and farmers of this slippery, slimy stuff second. Despite their reservations, the men have gotten into the habit of going to the ocean every day and shaking algae and dirt off of the seaweed, trimming it, and drying the harvested pieces. At times it has been hard, keeping these men interested in a project with seaweed that they never really asked for. At the outset of this project, I promised the men that I would find them funding for a fishcage project, (something more of the cultural norm in these parts, a much more tangible project) if they would be willing to try growing seaweeds, a lower return, more environmentally-friendly crop. They obliged and ever since, we have been working the seaweeds, waiting with baited breath for the arrival of their hallowed fish, the 'real' livelihood project.

 

This past week, the project finally came together in its entirety. After lots of heated texts and rousing speeches about fortitude and project goals by the resident persistent American (me), the municipal dump truck showed up Wednesday with hundreds of bags filled with little fish fry from the local nursery. In all, we received 5000 little Bangus fingerlings and now the 35 fisherfolk association members are beneficiaries of a 'legitimate' livelihood project, raising fish. They are changed men, what can I say. There are certain cultural litmus tests that have to be passed for the members to feel real pride in this project, I've found. One test is the association boat. For two months we borrowed boats, used private boats, even paddled out to the seaweed project to work, but once we bought an association boat, members were changed. I found that here, to be a bonafide association, you have to have your own boat. That makes you legit. Period. I don't know how to explain it, but there is a palpable change in the men since we have gotten an association boat, it seems to give the group a common, tangible bond that they didn't have before. The fish cage is the same. The members would be willing to work on anything that brings profit, but when they are raising fish, a crop they know and others recognize, the project has a certain credibility that wasn't there before.

Earlier today, Selena and I went out to the project site with a Peace Corps supervisor, Philippine government workers, and association members and sat with association officers while they fed the squirming, writhing fish, and they were able to talk as authorities about their project, the feeds, how they are doing, the condition of the nets. If nothing else happens, if the project were to die tomorrow, the fish were to escape into the surrounding ocean, if seaweed were to suddenly die, I can be sure that the members of the fisherfolks organization have pride, and I did as much as I could to help them achieve their potential. As this experience winds down, and I pack to go home, taking what memories I can fit onto a hard drive and in my mind, leaving the children, dogs, neighbors and friends I have met, it is a sound consolation to know that I've done what I could to help.