‘If we can’t fish any more, we’re going to die’: the volunteer sea patrols protecting precious Philippine waters

Dedicated groups called Bantay Dagat aim to conserve the abundant marine life surrounding their thousands of islands, which has been under pressure for years from intensive overfishing

• Photographs by Marla Tomorug/Edges of Earth

It is midnight on a beach in southern Negros Oriental, a province in the central Philippines, and everything is dark and silent. Except, that is, for the scene playing out in front of a small guardhouse made of bamboo. There, seven people have congregated: one middle-aged man is splayed on a bench, a man and a woman in sports vests hug their knees to their chest while chatting, and others walk back and forth barefoot with torches and green laser pointers shining out beyond the sand. All eyes are set on a portion of the ocean loosely cordoned off by some white buoys.

These are the Bantay Dagat, the sea patrol, a team of village-appointed volunteers who take turns staying up all night to guard their waters. They fend off any local people trying to illegally fish in the community marine sanctuaries, and any commercial fishers trying to trespass into municipal waters within 15km (nine miles) of the coastline.