Pa aling Fishing

Philippines

… Pa-aling is a controversial method of net fishing practiced in the Philippines around the islands of Cebu and Palawan. Last year I travelled to Palawan with a BBC film crew to document this incredibly dangerous practice for Human Planet. We spent a week at sea with two pa aling boats, with men diving approximately 3 times every day.

Pa-aling is derived from an older Filipino fishing technique known as Moro Ami which was officially outlawed in the mid 80’s as a result of repeated accusations of exploitative child labour practices and its highly destructive effect on the Philippines’ reefs.

The two techniques have a similar premise for catching fish, which involve groups of men diving to the ocean floor and setting up a large purse shaped net at the side of a reef, then arranging themselves in a line acting as a human barrier on the other side of the reef. The men then march slowly over the reef towards the net corralling all sea life into the jaws of the net. The net is then secured shut and floated to the surface to be pulled on to the boat.

The difference between the two techniques is that with Moro Ami, the human barrier traditionally used a line of rope weighted with rocks which were banged on the reef as they moved, scaring the fish towards the net. Also, the men were all breath divers which meant that they could not harvest fish from deep reefs. In Pa-aling, divers breathe compressed air through long tubes which allows them to easily dive to reefs at 100 ft, often for over half an hour at a time. Also, the barrier which they use to corral the fish is created from air bubbles emanating from their tubes.

Here’s the story…

The captain on our boat ran a very tight ship. He was extremely well respected by all the divers and didn’t take any bullshit from anyone. There were some very hard looking guys on the boats but they were always incredibly polite to us, something that has everything to do with the captain’s presence as far as I’m concerned.

All the divers are freelancers, so to speak, which means they bring all their own diving equipment with them on a trip, typically a homemade weight belt, homemade fins and a bought mask. For those of you that dive, you’ll know only too well how important good equipment is at depths of 40 metres. Now imagine trying to breathe using just a pipe that regularly gets kinks in it, has no regulator and is fed with air by a rusty old compressor 100 ft above you on the boat.

… and then the underwater ballet really starts…

… Until the net is completely closed off with the fish trapped inside, ready to be lifted to the surface…

Now it’s just a case of making sure nothing escapes on the way up ….

… and onto the boat…

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Life on the high seas…

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The best advice to people who want to get into this line of work…

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Here’s a teaser clip of this story from Human Planet‘s Oceans episode…

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