Selective harvesting by small-scale fisheries: ecosystem analysis of San Miguel Bay, Philippines

San Miguel Bay is a large embayment along the Pacific coast of southeast Luzon, Philippines. The estuarine ecosystem therein is described through a mass-balance model that includes 16 functional groups (state variables), representing over 200 exploited fish and commercial invertebrate species, the energy (feeding) fluxes among them, and the multispecies catch of the fisheries, which pit artisanal fishers, using a wide range of gear, against trawl operators. The parameterization of the model is described in some detail, as are the implications of the ecological and fisheries interactions thus described. The discussion emphasizes the need for regulating the competition between the two sectors of the fisheries, whose present trajectories tend toward further degradation of the San Miguel Bay ecosystem. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V All rights reserved.