Hi, my name is Alessia Kockel.
I'm a graduate student with the marine protected area research group
at the University of Victoria, located in Canada.
My research takes place in Sogod Bay, which is located in the Eastern Visayas region
of the Philippines.
The entire area for the Sogod Bay, I think, is
a hundred thousand hectares.
Sogod Bay is composed of 11 municipalities, Limasawa, Padre Burgos, Malitbog, Tomas Oppus, Bontoc, Sogod,
Libagon, Liloan, San Fransisco, Pintuyan, San Ricardo.
Like so many places in the world, the coral reef, mangrove habitats, and seagrass
beds in Sogod Bay are in continuous decline.
Marine ecosystems are really important for places like the Philippines.
There are so many people that rely on those ecosystems,
people who fish, people who rely on jobs, such as tourism or commercial fishing.
That's why it's so important to have healthy marine ecosystems, so that they can support
people.
Throughout the world now, we have a challenge with fisheries resources.
Not just in South-East Asia.
It's not just in Africa.
It's not just in South America.
It's not just in Canada.
Everywhere is the same, that the fishery catches are declining.
The main approach used in the Philippines to address the threats to bio-diversity and
fisheries is through the establishment of marine protected
areas, also known as MPAs.
A marine protected area, or an MPA, is an area of the ocean where human activities is
restricted in some way by law.
By restricting human activities and access, MPAs can help protect marine habitats, endangered
species, and declining fish stocks.
Several studies have shown that MPAs can, over time, increase the biomass density, and
even the number of fish species within their boundaries.
They can also increase the size and life expectancy of fish,
which is really important, since older and larger fish tend to lay more eggs than smaller
fish.
MPAs can also provide a lot of benefits to the fish or folks outside of their boundaries.
This is because as the fish populations recover within a given MPA, some of the fish, along
with their eggs and young, may move to areas outside of the MPA, where
they then become available for fishing.
This benefit is what we refer to as "the Spillover Effect".
So our next step as researchers is going to be to present these plans and different options
of where MPAs could be located in the bay back to local communities.
Hopefully, with a lot of discussion and through collaborating with each other,
we can come up with some MPA network plans
and implement them in the future.