Resource ecology of the Bolinao coral reef system

This study focuses on the reef system outlying Bolinao, and incorporates socioeconomic and scientific data to develop a comprehensive management plan for use by the local community and by similar communities in other tropical countries. Individual chapters cover: harvesting activities on the reef slope and flat; estimates of fish species diversity and overall abundance, and the negative impacts of fish harvesting; ways to reduce fishing intensity, and estimates of sustainable harvest rates; the outline of a proposed marine reserve/park system, to be set aside as a nonfishing area to serve as a protected breeding ground, migration route, and nursery; and action recommendations. The study advises that harvesting rates be reduced at least 60% and that particularly destructive and dangerous practices, such as blast and cyanide fishing and compressor diving, be banned completely. Emphasis must be placed on developing the reef"s tourist potential, finding alternative employment for displaced fishers, reducing wastage in fish processing operations, and slowing the region"s rate of population growth. Continuation of the current pattern of overfishing under conditions of rapid population growth and growing poverty (a situation known as Malthusian overfishing) will result, in the not too distant future, in the elimination of the resource on which so many people depend.