The governors of Laguna and Rizal, mayors of the towns and cities surrounding Laguna de Bay, fisher folk leaders and other agencies will meet with officials of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) on May 2 to finalise the plan to rehabilitate and repopulate country’s biggest lake.
The meeting with the LGU executives, heads of agencies like the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Laguna Lake Development Authority and stakeholders living around the lake will put finishing touches to Project Balik Sigla sa Ilog at Lawa.
The seeding of Laguna de Bay with millions of fingerlings will mark the start of a nation-wide program which intends to repopulate the country’s inland waters, including rivers and streams with indigenous fish species, including Black Head Eel to give poor Filipino families easy access to food.
Designed by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) based on a concept I presented to them which was inspired by the American experience on inland fisheries development, Project BASIL intends to clean up, rehabilitate and bring back Laguna de Bay to its old glorious and prosperous days when fishermen freely caught a lot of fish from the lake.
The project is being initiated in view of the recent directive by President Rody Duterte to the DENR and LLDA to dismantle the fish pens because the structures have clogged up the lake and small fishermen have virtually been dislocated from their traditional fishing grounds where they used to catch such indigenous species as kanduli, ayungin and biya.
The DAF is leading the efforts to rehabilitate the lake because with the dismantling of the fish pens, 36% of the fish supply of Metro Manila Markets will be lost.
Project BASIL intends to re-populate the lake with an estimated 5-M fingerlings of indigenous species including Bangus and Tilapia which could be harvested after six months.
Before this could be implemented, however, a massive clean up of the Lake will be undertaken with the DAF engaging local fishermen by giving them the FB Pagbabago fiberglass fishing boats which they will initially use to gather garbage and plastics floating in the Lake.
The LGUs will also be asked to monitor the continued dumping of industrial wastes and effluence into the Lake by factories around it while the DENR is expected to exercise its powers to close down any facility which pollutes the lake.
The LLDA, on the other hand, will be asked to identify other sources of livelihood for the fisher folk families living around the lake who will be deprived of income during the six-month closed fishing season.
The LLDA is also expected to make recommendations to the DA-BFAR on where to establish fish landings or fish ports where fishermen later would bring their catch to be delivered to the market.
The fisher folks as stakeholders will also be engaged in establishing hatcheries for the production of fingerlings of the indigenous fish species, including Tilapia to make the fingerlings production sustainable.
During the launching of the Project BASIL, President Duterte will be asked to lead local officials in seeding the Lake with 5-million fingerlings of Tilapia and Bangus and other indigenous species.
(Notice to all LGU chief executives who failed to receive their.invitations, please come even without invitations.
This meeting involves you and stakeholders of the Lake.
The venue of the forum is 3rd floor, Philcoa Bldg, elliptical Road, Quezon City, DA-BFAR Office.)
(Photos downloaded from public websites.)
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