Cyanide fishing: scourge on humans, catch, corals

Chinese maritime militia reportedly use cyanide to poach in Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal. Not content with stealing in our waters, they destroy nature. No different from akyat-bahay (porch climbers) who wreck doors, windows, cabinets.

A man-made compound, sodium cyanide comes in gas or liquid. Governments regulate its use in making paper, textiles and plastics. It is in chemicals for developing photographs. Cyanide salts are applied in metallurgy: electroplating, metal cleaning and removing gold from ore. Cyanide gas is a pesticide for vermin in ships and buildings. (Source: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Cyanide illegally abounds in gold mines in Mount Diwalwal, Moncayo, Davao de Oro. The liquid is poured in water ponds of ore. Dislodged, gold is strained by workers with bare hands. Ponds empty into rivers that flow down to rice fields and fruit orchards into the sea. As poison spreads, local officials see, hear, speak nothing.

Most prevalent illegal use is in fishing. “Liquid cyanide is squirted on tropical fish to stun it,” said Prof. Michael Atrigenio, Marine Science PhD. “It is then revived in clean water and sold at high prices to marine aquarium aficionados. But many buyers lose interest because poisoned fish die in three months.”

Worse is in illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) commercial fishing. Catchers spew cyanide in coral reefs. Fish that live, feed, rest in the crevices are paralyzed. Prize catches are lapulapu (grouper), mameng (Napoleon wrasse), bass, cod, salmon, edible bull huss shark and other rockfish. Plus lobster, mantis shrimp, sea cucumber.

Chinese thieves sell them in Hong Kong, Macau and Hainan. Some are even “exported” back to the Philippines for fine dining. (Lovers of large galunggong [round scad] that Chinese poach in Philippine seas need not worry. Those are pelagic or upper water feeders, thus spared from cyanide. Chinese sellers soak them in another poison, formalin, to harden the tissue and look fresh.)

Cyanided fish are limp. Poison gathers in the liver and muscles. Beware in public markets.

Woe to the person who ingests those. He will suffer dizziness, vomiting, weakness, body aches and fainting, Atrigenio said. One who devours too much can die of liver disease.

Corals, sessile animals, take root on the seabed. They first turn white from cyanide poisoning, then black from algae and eventually disintegrate. Without corals, bottom-dwelling fish have nowhere to mate, lay eggs, feed and grow.

Like the use of explosives and electric shock, cyanide fishing is forbidden worldwide. Filipino illegal fishers can be handcuffed and arrested on sight at sea or in public markets.

Chinese poachers should be treated likewise. Enough of the leniency they were accorded under presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Rodrigo Duterte.

The 1998 Fisheries Code and the 2015 Anti-IUU Fishing Act are strict. Violators face fine of five times the value of their illegal catch even if co-mingled with legal ones, or the following amounts, whichever is higher:

• P30,000 for municipal fishing;

• P300,000 for small-scale commercial fishing;

• P1,500,000 for medium-scale commercial fishing and

• P3,000,000 for large-scale commercial fishing.

Violators can be imprisoned for five to ten years.

Time was when Philippine coastguards and fisheries officers interdicted Chinese poachers in the West Philippine Sea. Aside from those mentioned above, confiscated from them were shark fins, manta rays, pawikan (sea turtles), taklobo (giant clams) and fan corals. Numerous steel poaching vessels stayed anchored in Puerto Princesa Bay, Palawan, as the Chinese faced trial.

But Macapagal-Arroyo was soft on poachers. Succumbing to Chinese embassy pressures, Malacañang made prosecutors dismiss charges.

That enraged Palawan folk. Twice they lay down on the airport runway to prevent poachers from fleeing. Twice too, poacher ships were torched.

About that time Macapagal-Arroyo inked with China a Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking to survey Philippine seabed. One-sixth of the survey area was territorial waters; the rest was Philippine exclusive economic zone. Hoodwinked by Beijing, Malacañang never got a copy of the study. The Supreme Court recently declared the JMSU illegal.

Professing love for President Xi Jinping, Duterte in 2017 let Chinese poachers into WPS. The aliens got a better deal than Filipino fishers who were bound by the two laws above. No limits were set on the volume, area and season for poaching.

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