Restoring the waters of Nasugbu

Fifty-six-year-old Agapito “Mang Pete” Perno’s life used to be a savvy blast fisher when he was 20 years younger. Today, Mang Pete still roams the waters of Nasugbu, Batangas, this time clasping a sack of fish feed instead of a stick of ammonium nitrate.

“The sun had not yet risen, but you could already hear explosions,” Mang Pete recalls, referring to his old practice of dynamite fishing while skirting the coast guard. But the former bosero, or spotter, from Papaya, Nasugbu, has also seen the devastation brought by his action in the form of destroyed reefs and diminished catch for his native town.

In 2007, his encounter with Costa del Hamilo, Inc., a subsidiary of SM Land, Inc. and project developer of the envisioned premier sustainable beach resort town Hamilo Coast in Nasugbu, gave Mang Pete a fresh start as he became the resident guardian of the development’s 13 coves-a title that he accepted with renewed pride. Three of the coves are now marine protected areas.

“I feed them by hand because I don’t want anything to happen to the fish, “Mang Pete says. His routine includes monitoring seeded giant clams, or taklobo, taking care of corals, patrolling Hamilo Coast’s 31-kilometer coastline, and staving off would-be poachers.

“Today, the catch of local fisher folks have increased by as much as 12 kg daily, which is more than 50 percent of their old haul,” says World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Philippines’ Paolo Pagaduan, project manager of Hamilo Coast’s sustainable development projects that involve taking care of 5,900 hectares of abundant, yet vulnerable flora and fauna.

WWF Philippines implemented a “ridge-to-reef” approach where baseline studies of uplands were performed to determine what interventions can be done. As a result of these studies, Costa del Hamilo, Inc. launched a multi-pronged sustainability campaign composed of a waste management program, coastal resource management, renewable energy program involving solar energy, and bantay dagat units to patrol the coastlines, where Mang Pete is a part of.

Pagaduan says that a true ecotourism destination has to achieve balance. “It must have economic sense for it to become sustainable, then it should benefit local communities, and, of course, environmental programs.”