Paper short abstract:

This paper explores fishers’ understandings of change in climate, environment, and fishing in two communities on the Verde Island Passage in Batangas, Philippines. Causality, agency and metaphors involving humans, climate, weather and fish are analyzed to describe locals’ cultural models of nature.

Paper long abstract:

This research focuses on fishers' understandings of the relationships between humans and various elements in the natural environment such as weather, animals, and fish. Fishers in two communities along the Verde Island Passage in Batangas, Philippines, during a 6-week period of ethnographic and linguistic research in March and April of 2014, explained if, how, and why the climate, the natural environment, and food production (fishing) had changed over the past four decades. Both small-scale commercial and subsistence fishermen reported significant changes affecting their ability to capture fish in areas such as the quantity and species of fish available; the sea level and the sea's proximity to homes; the quality of the marine habitat; and the intensity and predictability of seasonal weather, especially storms. Changes in weather patterns and fish availability have caused fishermen to abandon some of their traditional capture strategies.

The research also reveals that fishermen in the region understand humans, animals, and the climate as linked by shared characteristics. Changes in weather patterns, climate, and the natural environment are often understood using metaphors of human characteristics, the human life cycle, cycles considered "natural," and the supernatural. With some important exceptions, many believe there is little humans can do about observed climate changes and sea level rise besides adjust to these changes. While community members may implicate human activity in diminishing fish supply, they point to local (not global) activities such as area pollution, development, and illegal fishing.