DA-BFAR CARAGA, SIKAT HOLD I-FIT WORKSHOP IN SIARGAO ISLAND

DA-BFAR Caraga, SIKAT hold I-FIT workshop in Siargao

Island By Venus L. Garcia

The Department of Agriculture - Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) Caraga with Sentro ng Katutubong Agham at Teknolohiya (SIKAT, INC.), as the partner and support non-government organization, recently conducted a workshop assessment using the Philippine Illegal Unreported Unregulated (IUU) Fishing Index and Threat Assessment or I-FIT tool among the nine municipalities in Siargao Island.

The I-FIT focal persons presented the different components of the said tool - prevalence, vulnerability, and response of IUU fishing to readily fill up the indicator and annex forms.

The training participants actively engaged in the sessions such as arranging of focuser statements to give them an idea of what the workshop was all about and identifying IUU fishing activities present in their respective areas of jurisdiction.

They also worked together in providing inputs on the questions required to assess IUU fishing activities in their municipal waters. They

were also encouraged to proactively coordinate and support each entity to solve the problem of IUU fishing.

To sustainably manage the fisheries resources and find long-lasting solutions to IUU fishing threats, the I-FIT tool was developed and designed by Fish Right Program and DA-BFAR in efforts to reduce and eliminate IUU fishing in the country using a science and knowledgebased approach. This requires an in-depth understanding of the context of IUU fishing in municipal waters and in a given area.

This set of tools enable to assess prevalence, vulnerability and responses to IUU fishing in specific areas starting with the municipal waters of a local government unit and use this information to identify opportunities to address IUU fishing to develop targeted and focused strategies and interventions.

Using the tool will enable law enforcers to come up with standardized and comparable tracking of progress in a given area and the entire country in reducing IUU fishing over time.

The workshop assessment convened municipal agriculturists, agricultural technologists for fisheries, municipal environment, and natural resource officers, FARMC chairpersons, representatives from the ‘bantay dagat’ group and fisherfolk organizations; and Philippine National Police representatives from the nine municipalities in Siargao Island.

The workshop assessment was conducted by batch. The first group attended on June 22-23, 2021 from four municipalities, and for the second group for five municipalities on June 24-25, 2021. (DA-BFAR XIII FPLEG/PIA-Surigao del Norte)