Marine Conservation in the Philippines

People and the Sea is a marine based conservation initiative. We organise volunteer expeditions to the island of Malapascua in the Philippines.

Our mission is to promote capacity building and community-based marine resource management and conservation as a way to alleviate poverty and increase the resilience of coastal communities. We believe in responsible tourism, where volunteers have an active role in the protection of the marine environment and become part of the community that hosts them. People and the Sea has developed a set of ’tools’ and a unique integrated approach to better environmental conservation and poverty reduction.

我们开发了5个核心程序mes on Malapascua that touch different elements of the community, but always carrying a clear and consistent message. These programmes are all funded through sustainable, independent sources. And while these programmes address real, current and very palable problems in their own right, their real success lies in the ability to bring people together and to build partnerships. In every aspect of the work we have undertaken, we see time and again the strength of people working together, with a shared destination.

We believe our model could be replicated in several other locations in the Philippines. The ocean doesn’t have borders, and we need a propagation of positive impacts in multiple locations to counter the current social and environmental threats faced by coastal communities in the Philippines.