*[Enwl-eng] Notes from a Vanishing Shore

[ecology]

Filipino artisanal fishing communities are fighting to maintain their way of 
life.

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                                News of the world environment


                                 NEWSLETTER | JUNE 27, 2025

























                                Vanishing Shores

                                THE FERRY SLIPPED out of Dumaguete’s city 
port just before dawn. On the roof deck, I joined the scattered silhouettes 
of morning people, each of us drawn there by an unspoken desire to greet the 
sea. I breathed deeply, greedily, each inhale a cool balm easing the back of 
my throat and each exhale exiting as a faint fog. I was heading back home, 
to Zamboanga, a city on another island some 16 hours south of the 
Philippines’ Central Visayas region, where I had once lived.

                                This particular return weighed heavily on 
me. As the ferry cut through the waves, I found myself thinking of my 
ancestors who had once traveled these same waters, moving from one coastal 
home to another across the country’s islands in search of better fishing 
grounds — guided only by knowledge passed down among navigators in their 
communities and the very real need to provide food for the family. The 
whisper of the breeze and the gentle rocking of the ferry seemed to carry 
echoes of their existence, drifting like the sea’s own breath, reminding me 
of the threads that still bound me to them.

                                I grew up immersed in seafaring tales. I 
heard stories of how, once, after enduring days with no substantial catch, 
my maternal grandfather and his brother ventured out on the cold, open 
waters off their fishing village in Cotabato, on the island of Mindanao. 
When they returned, my great-uncle developed a fever and severe cough. By 
the time they sought help, it was too late. A month after he died, news 
spread through their fishing village that those who ventured farther south 
to the Zamboanga Peninsula were met with bountiful catches. The same news 
had reached my paternal grandparents in village of Iloilo, in the Western 
Visayas, which inspired them to make the journey as well. In the 1950s, both 
families settled in Zamboanga, unaware that they would be among the last 
generations of artisanal fisherfolk in their lines.

                                As the ferry hummed along, I wondered how 
these landscapes had shaped us — and what it means to stay rooted when those 
very landscapes begin to vanish.

                                Author Sigrid Marianne Gayangos reflects on 
what The Philippines’ eroding coastline means for a culture that remains 
deeply entwined with the sea.


                              READ MORE

                                Photo by Art Phaneuf / Alamy






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From: Editors, Earth Island Journal <editor at earthisland.org>
Date: сб, 28 июн. 2025 г., 2:45
Subject: Notes from a Vanishing Shore




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