Coastal Livelihoods and Resource Use: Community Perspectives from San Jose, Gonzaga | InformativeBD

Gerlie B. Hardy, from the institute of Philippines. wrote a Research article about, Coastal Livelihoods and Resource Use: Community Perspectives from San Jose, Gonzaga. entitled, Socio-economic component, coastal resource use and perception, and participation of the coastal communities/fishing households in San Jose, Gonzaga, Cagayan. This research paper published by the International Journal of Biosciences | IJB. an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences| INNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

The study generally identified and analyzed the socio-economic status, coastal resource use, and perception and community participation of coastal communities of the community of San Jose in Gonzaga, Cagayan. The research conducted interviews based on questionnaires and used a descriptive survey as the research design. Thirty-seven respondents were interviewed and most of them are members of San Jose Fisher folk Association. It revealed that most have low levels of education, with fishing as the main source of income for the residents. This dominance of fishing is a major economic factor contributing to the income of the community. The fishing activities are not only limited to marine waters but also to estuary areas where mangroves thrive. Meanwhile, due to climate change and resource-dependent communities, today, benefits derived from coastal environments are limited since there were some changes observed in fishing ground location, the volume of catch, size of fish, coral reef, mangroves, and beaches. Generally, it implies that a full understanding of socio-economic characteristics, coastal resource use, and perception of the coastal community of Barangay San Jose play important roles in the coastal resource restoration and management plans. Also, these help to understand the underlying causes of degradation and interventions needed in the community.

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Introduction 

Mangrove forest is considered a highly productive ecosystem that offers important economic and ecological goods and services (Zakaria and Rajpar, 2015). It is a natural barrier to reduce the devastating impact of natural disasters such as tsunamis, typhoons, and storm surges. Also, it provides breeding and nursing grounds for marine and pelagic species and helps stabilize shorelines. Other ecological benefits are providing medicine, food, building materials for local communities, and fuel. In the country, the current estimates of mangrove forest are less than half of what it once was and this remaining is in a degraded condition. These forests are the least concerned and often over-utilized by human communities (Haritha et al., 2017) and the continued decline of the forest is caused by conversion to aquaculture, agriculture, tourism, urban development, and deforestation. Mangrove forest has been declining at a faster rate as compared to coral reefs and inland tropical forests.

In Cagayan, there are 3,967.9 hectares of mangrove area which are distributed throughout the municipalities of Aparri, Calayan, Abulug, Buguey, Gonzaga, Claveria, Sta. Ana, Pamplona, Santa Teresita, and Sanchez Mira (EQ. Pasion; BT. Tumaliuan, 2015). Mangrove area harbors at least 14 species of true mangrove and this is 35% of the country’s mangrove plant species. Particularly, in Gonzaga, the status of the mangrove forest is poor with an average of 25% living mangrove. Most of the areas manifested heavy erosion, severe cutting, and siltation particularly observed in Barangays San Jose and Caroan, where the largest tracts of mangrove forest in the municipality are located (Pasion and Tumaliuan, 2015). The degradation of mangrove forests possesses negative consequences on ecology, disaster preparation and control, livelihood, biodiversity, livelihood, and the living condition of people in coastal areas. With this, restoration and conservation of mangrove forests in these coastal communities are essential. According to Lewis (2009), successful mangrove forest restoration requires careful analyses of a number of factors in advance of attempting actual restoration. A wide variety of restoration techniques have been developed; however, the most critical point is to fit restoration efforts with the local biological and physical settings, selecting the right location and the right species (Lavieren et al., 2012). The ecological aspects of mangrove restoration must also be coupled with considering the local community that has specific socio-economic conditions. A full understanding of the socio-economic status of the community can help the goal of restoration and can guide the management plans of the study. Interviews with local people may help to understand what are the underlying causes of degradation-even to researchers from exact sciences these socio-economic surveys are very important, as they are the only source of retrospective information. The study identified and analyzed the socio-economic status and ecological status of coastal communities of Barangay San Jose in Gonzaga, Cagayan, Philippines, and their dependency on the floral and faunal resources of water. This baseline and ecological information are a basic and prerequisite tool that can be incorporated into a resource management context by recommending interventions that address the underlying factors behind coastal resource degradation.

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Article source : Socio-economic component, coastal resource use and perception, and participation of thecoastal communities/fishing households in San Jose, Gonzaga, Cagayan