Authors:. Cherry Ravelo,1 Erma Cuarteron,1 Fel Ceasar Cadiz2, Roquelito Mancao2 and Pablo Rojas Jr.2

CONTEXT

In 2010, LGU-Cantilan partnered with Rare to develop a Pride program to protect the Ayoke and General Island MPAs. Pride is Rare‟s flagship program to implement a suite of community-based social marketing campaigns that integrate existing natural resource management efforts with behavior change tools.

The Philippines is one of the mega diversity countries (Roberts et al. 2002) and considered as the center of the center of the world‟s marine biodiversity (Carpenter, et., 2005). The country sits within the coral triangle and among the worlds pioneers in managing its coastal and marine resources that support nearly 80 million Filipinos. The once vast and productive coastal and marine ecosystem was devastated by unregulated utilization and open access regime that resulted to overfishing. Blast fishing further aggravated overfishing. In 1999, about 70,000 fishers - that's 12% of the total number of capture fishers in the Philippines - are suspected to engage in blast fishing (Sievert, 1999). As part of government's effort to reduce marine resources depletion, it penned Republic Act No. 8550 (the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998). This law penalizes the use of explosives with imprisonment of 5-10 years. The Fisheries Code also mandates the establishment of marine protected areas (MPA) . The country has more than 1,200 MPAs.

Pride campaigns are used to reduce threats to biodiversity that are caused by human behaviors, for example, intrusion to marine protected area. Pride campaigns are implemented by Conservation Fellows(CFs) working for lead agency partners (such as LGU-Cantilan) Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected to: 1) understand the target audience and refine messaging and 2) evaluate the impact of Pride on specific indicators along the Theory of Change (ToC) for this campaign.

RARE METHODOLOGY IN SOCIAL MARKETING

GOAL:

Reduce threat of overfishing by local fishers thereby increasing coral

cover, fish biomass and abundance by 5% at Ayoke and General Island MPAs over the period of 2 years (2010- 2012).

CASE STUDY: Ayoke Island MPA

The December 2011 blasting incidence has offered a number of realization and learning that led to improvement on how Rare and LGU-Cantilan implement its Pride campaign . Key highlights included:

•Blasting incidents have serious social and ecological

implications, but can be used positively to shift in knowledge, attitude, and conversation of fishers,

community members and government officials.

• The creation of a community reporting system coupled

with 24/7 guarding needs to be complemented by market surveillance and market education.

• Expansion of the campaign target to include the town center and reaching out to fish consumers and

households.

KEY LEARNING

."

REFERENCES

1Local Government of Cantilan Surigao del Sur, Philippines

che_mravelo@yahoo.com

2Rare Philippine Representative Office

Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines fcadiz@rareconservation.org

Pride campaigns are branded by the use of a „„flagship‟‟ species that is a source of local pride and invokes local ownership of the pride campaigns. Cantilan used the giant clam (Tridacna gigas) from which the town derived its name.

In order to explicitly assess impact, Rare employs a logic model, or Theory of Change (ToC) to guide our hypotheses of how Pride works to influence

community behavior.

From Loss to Opportunity: Using the Power of Community Pride to combat social effects of Blast

Fishing in Marine Protected Areas in the Philippines

As a result of the blast incidence the following measures were put in place:

• Real time investigation and on-the-spot check of the guard on duty for suspicious activities near the MPA.

• De-briefing and dialogues with community members and leaders to process blasting shock and create community pride re-building activities.

• Increase in the municipal appropriations for incentive to enforcement team by 150%

• Strengthening of the logbook system and community surveillance system

• Intensification of market denial activities by fish examiners.

• Incorporation of fish markets, fish landing stations and wharfs as places of promotion of social marketing materials.

Pride campaign uses symbols of local pride, powerful images, repetitive call for action and emphasis on benefit-exchange to promote desired behavior change.

Target audience Desired Behavior Change Barriers to behavior Change

Fishers (246)

Stop intrusion in the MPA and

use the prescribed navigation

route (for Ayoke fishers)

MPAs are traditional

fishing grounds

Community members (1,484)

Support the MPA by reporting

intrusions inside the MPA to

enforcement team.

Apathy to MPA laws and

retaliation

Contributing Factors

• Suspects who are migrants settled in the beachfront adjacent to the MPA 3

months before the incidence. They were not reached by the Pride campaign activities.

• December is busy month due to Christmas festivities.

• There was a breach on the 24/7 guarding and failure on proper MPA guard rotation shift. There was a 3-hour lull period before new guard reported. Blast happened during the lull period.

• Poor surveillance and detection. Despite reports of seeing fishers in the periphery of the MPA, MPA guards on duty did not make ocular visit.

• Delayed response to market report and failure of the market inspection team

surveillance.

Description of MPA Ayoke Island MPA has a total area of 52 ha with 23 ha core zone, 9 ha buffer zone1 and 10 ha buffer zone 2. The MPA is managed primarily by NAGMAKAAYO – a people‟s organization (PO). Community Characteristics Located in an island community in Cantilan, Surigao del Sur, Mindanao island. Around 55% of the total populace are full time fishers. Capture fishing in the offshore areas is the most common activity next to gleaning (KAP survey, 2011) Top 10 in the 2011 Marine Protected Area Support Network Search for Best MPA.

Carpenter, K.E. and V.G. Springer. 2005. Environmental

Biology of Fishes (2005) 72: 467-480. Ravelo, C. KAP Survey, March 2011

Roberts, C.M., J.M. Colin, J.E.N. Veron, J.P. Hawkins,

G.R. Allen, D.E. McAllister, C.G. Mittermeier, F.W. Schueller, M. Spalding, F. Wells, C. Vynne, and T.B. Werner, 2002. Marine Biodiversity Hotspots and

Conservation Priorities for Tropical Reefs. Science 295:1280-1284

Sievert, R. 1999 “Closer Look at Blast Fishing in the Philippines” CBRM.

• Two suspected blast occurred in December 23 , 2011 in the core zone of

the Ayoke MPA, 50 meters from the guardhouse.

• Two hours later 7 crates of blasted fish appeared in Ayoke town market –around 45 minutes boat ride from Ayoke Island.

• No blasting caps or remains were recovered by the Barangay Intelligence Network, but blast incidence was verified. No formal complaints were filed to suspects given the absence of evidence but suspects were invited to the Cantilan Police station.

• Ayoke community‟s initial reaction was that of despair and local MPA leaders got frustrated. LGU-lead discussions swayed public despair . Eventually the PO decided to fortify their enforcement system.

• Last recorded blasting incidence was in 2006 outside the sanctuary. This would be the 1st not only in Ayoke MPA but in the entire Lanuza Bay network of MPAs.

Closing the source-to-market by including transport, traders and fish vendors in the social marketing loop. New social marketing materials such as boat awnings, market posters and billboards in the Cantilan market will be produced. Quantitative data analysis evaluating campaign impact and reach will be available by August 2012.

Strategic channels and trusted sources for the campaign were selected as a result of knowledge, attitudes and inter-personal communication (KAP) survey of the target communities in March 2011.