Pangingisda

 Illegal Fishing Methods

The illegal fishing methods in the Philippines are often very destructive, ranging from cyanide fishing to dynamite fishing, nearly all these methods have a large negative effect on the environment. Environmentally friendly ways of fishing are far too expensive and time-consuming to be viable for your everyday fishermen, so these illegal methods are often used instead. From a young age I have always been aware of these illegal fishing methods due to seeing people dynamite fishing in the Philippines and I  have seen the effects of it first hand.

Blast Fishing

Various relations of mine often use dynamite fishing due to its ease but they have little concern for the consequences and the fact that its is very dangerous. Blast fishing is done by using a homemade explosive to create an explosion powerful enough to rupture a fish's swim bladder rendering it unable to swim but making sure the explosion isn't too large as to destroy the fish or the nearby fishermen. This method of fishing causes great amounts of damage to coral reefs as well, with the explosions often happening in the middle of coral reefs, entire areas of coral reef has been destroyed due to this.

 Here is a box of some homemade dynamite which is to be used for dynamite fishing. These homemade explosives are often made by using glass bottles and using layers of potassium nitrate and pebbles.

 This photo shows another kind of homemade explosive using an everyday glass coke bottle.

 Cyanide Fishing

This different method of fishing does not cause physical damage to reefs etc but it can cause vast amounts of damage in other ways. This method uses cyanide to poison the fish until they become stunned and easy to catch. This method was developed in 1962 and is done by mixing sodium cyanide with salt water and placed in a bottle so it can be released when desired underwater. This method is quite often used for capture fish for the aquarium industry. Cyanide is often used because it stuns the fish so they can be easily caught but, quite often, the cyanide doses will kill young fish instantly and some fish who have been exposed to the cyanide show no signs of poisoning for a couple of weeks when suddenly die due to cyanide having an effect on the digestive system. Even when a fish survives contact with cyanide, studies showed that a portion of fish exposed to cyanide exhibited shorter lifespans and deformed offspring. So not only does it effect the fish who came in contact with it, but future generations of fish.

http://www.petstoreabuse.com/cyanide.html

 This picture shows a diver using a homemade cyanide container and flushing cyanide into the coral reef as this is where a lot of the fish hide.

 The use of cyanide can often biodegrade coral reefs, killing coral polyps, algae and other small reef organisms which are all needed to sustain the coral reef. This gradual biodegrading of coral reefs will often lead to an ecological collapse of a reef and the entire ecosystem grinds to a halt. With the Philippines having some of the worlds most beautiful coral reefs, they are under threat and rapid destruction from the use of these illegal fishing methods.