In his speech, Maurino Bonifacio, ISDA vice president for the prawn industry, said fishpond owners in the region are now being confronted with the problem of how to keep their prawns alive up the harvest season.
“Climate change has visibly caused our sea level to rise, so that the waters now go up to levels never before experienced, especially during high tide. The problem is aggravated by our silted waterways so that the high water level does not recede fast enough," he said.
Bonifacio said water level affects the behavior and quality of prawns.
As the rising of sea levels could not be immediately remedied, he added that dredging of silted river channels would be of significant help so that waters that enter their fishponds during high tide would at least readily recede once the tide ebbs.
At the same time, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) director Remedios Ongtangco, who recently arrived from an international fisheries conference, reported that while Asia now supplies 91 percent of the world's demand for fishery products, the Philippines is outranked by three Asian neighbors in the value of their exported fishery products.
In her briefing during the conference attended by top aquaculture businessmen from various Central Luzon provinces, Ongtangco cited latest studies indicating that in terms of “fishery export trends", the Philippines has exports worth US$630 million. Read the full report here.
Source: by Punto Central Luzon, Clark Freeport, Philippines philstar.com.
