Reconsidering Blast Fishing within a World System: Civil War and Economic Development in the Southern Philippines

Coral reefs foster marine biodiversity and are an important part of the ‘common heritage of mankind’. However, many coral reefs throughout the world are facing deterioration or destruction. One of the main causes is blast fishing. It is a common fishing method carried out in the southern portion of the South China Sea. This paper examines the socio-economical and socio-political history of the blast fishing industry in the Spratly Islands with reference to the dried fish industry in the southern Philippines. The paper describes not only fisheries but also their background and discusses why and how they have developed in the context of Philippine history. For this purpose, commodity flows are examined in particular:what kind of fish is targeted and how and who consumes the catch. For example, the catch from blast fishing is often limited to Caesio spp. The catch is processed into salt-preserved dried fish, and the dried product is shipped and traded on Mindanao Island where the inland plantations owned by global agro-capitalists produce dollar-earning crops such as coconut, banana, and pineapple. Furthermore, the blast-fishermen also occupy a low social status in the Philippines. They are refugees from the conflicts in the 1970s between the Muslim rebels and the central government dominated by Christians. Blast fishing in the southern Philippines is a negative legacy created through nation building in the Republic of the Philippines, the struggle against colonialism, and economic development of Mindanao in the contemporary Philippines.