Fishers practice a range of fishing activities ranging from artisanal or nearshore fishing
with wooden boats equipped with small engines (10 horsepower) and basic communication
tools (cell phones) to offshore fishing with large engines (200 plus horsepower) and
sophisticated communication gear (GPS, sonar equipment).11 While all fishers spend time
on their boats away from home, the cost of fishing gear, engine capacity, and length away
from home increases significantly for offshore fishers. Nearshore fishers, for example, may
fish within a few kilometers of shore for half a day or a day and only catch a few kilograms
of low value fish, whereas offshore vessels (consisting of boat owners or hired captains and
crew12) may either fish within 20 km of the shore for up to 5 days or may be at sea for up
to 15 days catching hundreds or thousands of kilograms of high-value fish and trash fish
(see Ha and van Dijk 2013 for further analysis). Nearshore fishing households have limited
land access (.56 ha on average) and derive a quarter of their income from activities other
than fishing. Offshore fishers were, by far, the richest households in our sample, earning
around seven times more than nearshore fishers. These households owned little land and
relied almost completely on fishing as a source of income (see Table 2). As one fisher
explained, ‘‘[b]efore the typhoon of 1997, the production for tuna, mackerel and other high
value species was really good. But we did not get nearly as good a price as we do now.’’