The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will provide large fishing vessels to tuna catchers in Eastern Samar province to improve their fishing capabilities and production.
BFAR 8 (Eastern Visayas) Hannibal Chavez said on Tuesday they would train in August two fishermen’s groups in Eastern Samar in how to operate the 62-footer fiberglass fishing vessel with full machinery and accessories.
“The target is to implement the project within the year. For one year, the vessels’ operation is under the management of BFAR. If they are already capacitated, the vessel will be turned over to fisherfolk, but we are still there to monitor,” Chavez told the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
Each one of the large fishing vessels has four attached small fishing or catcher boats, which can move away from the mother boat to catch tuna in the Pacific Ocean. It has a storage facility that can carry about two metric tons of fish.
Dan de San Miguel, BFAR-8 provincial fishery director, said the beneficiaries are two fishermen’s associations in the towns of Guiuan and Balangkayan.
“The provision of fishing vessel(s) will increase the capacity of our fishermen to catch more tuna. Usually, fishermen in Eastern Samar don’t go far to catch tuna since they always run out of supplies of food, water, and ice,” de San Miguel added.
Commonly, tuna fishing in Samar areas is on a small scale, with locals fishing in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean using small motorboats only and lines waiting for tunas to bite.
Early this year, the BFAR-8 turned over a PHP39 million purse seine fishing vessel to members of the Northern Samar Pacific Towns Fishermen’s Cooperative.
The fisheries bureau awarded the vessel through its Capacitating Municipal Fisherfolk Program designed to raise the capability of local fishers to contribute to the country’s annual tuna production.
The Pacific towns of the province and some areas in Eastern Samar are within the Tuna Conservation Management Zone (TCMZ), which is rich in tuna.
The vessel donated by BFAR to fishermen in Northern Samar made its first voyage on May 15-16, harvesting 1.5 tons of high-value species.
The first test-fishing mission of the FV/DA-BFAR 2102 steel-hulled fish harvester within the Pacific Ocean on May 15-16 was successful.
The vessel is still up for full turnover to the local fisherfolk group in Northern Samar as the BFAR and fisherfolk have yet to resolve some issues found during the test mission.
The region’s Pacific Ocean, particularly off the coast of Eastern and Northern Samar, is known for tuna fishing with about 600 tons every year, less than the 1,000 tons quota set by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
Over the past years, Filipino commercial fishermen gained access to the High Seas Pocket 1, where big tunas are found.
The High Seas Pocket 1 is the area bounded by the exclusive economic zones of the Federated States of Micronesia to the north and east, the Republic of Palau to the west, and the Republic of Indonesia and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea to the south. (PNA)
