About PAMANA

PAMANA is:
(English): National Alliance of Small Fishers and Communities Managing the Coast and Marine Sanctuaries of the Philippines.
(Bisaya): Pambansang Alyansa Ng Mga Maliliit Na Mangingisda at Komunidad na Nangangalaga ng Karagatan at Sanktwaryo sa Pilipinas....

...a group of fisherfolk involved in protecting and managing 122 marine sanctuaries nationwide in the Philippines. Pamana Ka members are fishermen who volunteer to work as fish wardens, or guardians of municipal marine sanctuaries. Despite the risks taken and the threat of imprisonment from often more powerful illegal fishers, fish wardens do not have salaries. Together, we have formed a force to counter the threats of commercial fishers, illegal fishing and others.

History of PAMANA
In 1997, Haribon Foundation initiated a project called the Inventory of Marine Protected Areas of the Philippines funded by the International Development Research Centre-Canada (IDRC-Canada). The project was a three-year research initiative that eventually became instrumental in the formation of a national alliance of community-based managed marine protected areas and fish sanctuaries.
Meanwhile, while doing these studies, in 1998, a group of community-based sanctuary managers from some parts of the Visayas, gathered in Bohol to form an alliance through the efforts of Project Seahorse-HARIBON. In the same year, this group met again together with other participants of a national consultation workshop on sanctuaries. From there, they decided then to form a national alliance who will met again at a national congress in March 1999.
In 1999, the PAMANA KA SA PILIPINAS was organized and registered to the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippine Government. Its 1st PAMANA National Congress in March 16-18, 1999 was an organizational assembly funded by Rockefellers Brothers Fund.
In the succeeding years, series of regional assemblies and leaders’ meetings were held in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao regions, with support from Project Seahorse, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Coastal Resource Management Project-USAID, Oxfam-UK and other local sources like the Foundation for Philippine Environment.