The effectiveness of community managed marine protected areas for conservation of commercially important coral reef fishes in the Philippines

The Philippines has the most number of community managed marine protected areas (MPAs) in the world. However, questions have been raised as to their effectiveness for biodiversity conservation and fisheries management, especially in the face of increasing highly resource dependent coastal population. We assessed the effectiveness of 58 MPAs in the Philippines for conservation of seven commercially important coral reef fish families: Acanthuridae (excluding Zebrasoma genus), Haemulidae, Labridae (subfamily Scarinae only), Lethrinidae, Lutjanidae, Mullidae and Serranidae. The highest fish biomass (mean±S.E., 25.5±5.8 kg/500m 2 ) was recorded at the largest (33,200 ha), oldest and well enforced (i.e. protected for >20 years) Tubbataha Reefs National Marine Park (TRNMP), which is a remote coral reef complex found in the Sulu Sea biogeographic region. Using this biomass as the “unfished” level (B o ) and biomass levels between 25-50% of B o as biomass within maximum sustainable yield for multi-species fisheries (B MMSY ), we found that fish biomass levels in 7%, 25% and 68% of the surveyed community managed MPAs were “above”, “within” and “below B MMSY ”, respectively. Fish biomass levels on all of the reefs outside MPAs were either “within” or “below B MMSY ”. Excluding TRNMP, fish biomass inside MPAs did not differ significantly neither among the six biogeographic regions of the Philippines nor between island and non-island reefs. Size and age of MPAs did not show significant relationship with fish biomass. For reefs outside MPAs, fish biomass was highest in the Sulu Sea and lowest in the Visayan Seas biogeographic region. Fish biomass was signifcantly higher on island reefs. Overall, this study shows the poor conditions of commercially important coral reef fishes, which is indicative of high fishing pressure. Recommendations to improve the effectiveness of MPAs and other initiatives that would alleviate fishing pressure on coral reefs are discussed.