Changing Tides: Temporal Dimensions of Low-Cost, High-Skill Fisheries in the Central Visayas, Philippines

Abstract

At the southern mouth of the Tañon Strait—the body of water that separates the islands of Cebu and Negros in the Visayas region of the Philippines—small-scale fishing has always been challenging. Strong and complex sea currents make it difficult for fishers to utilise certain fishing gears. With a significant decline in the resource base and new regulations of the fisheries in recent decades, only fishers with advanced skills and fine-grained place-specific and calendric knowledge of the marine environment are able to catch enough fish, and the right kind of fish, to secure a decent return. Drawing on insights from cultural ecology, the chapter examines the skills and knowledges that fishers draw on to catch fish in this challenging environment. It gives particular attention to the temporal dimensions of the biocultural knowledge complex, showing how fishers’ knowledge of the links between sea currents, the lunar cycle and monsoon winds play into their decisions about where, when and how to fish. In addition to its direct livelihood significance, calendric knowledge also serves as a resource in the formation of identity as mananagat (fisherman) and authority and status within the fishing community. To further explain why some fishers are able to use their knowledge to make fishing a viable and legitimate livelihood and others are not, the last part of the chapter uses insights from political ecology to address issues of power and dynamics of exclusion in the fisheries.