How to Save Marine Wildlife One Choice at a Time with Dr. AA Yaptinchay

What role does marine wildlife play in keeping our oceans and communities healthy? In this episode of Good and Green, Chit Juan speaks with Dr. AA Yaptinchay, marine wildlife conservationist and Founder of the Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines, about protecting threatened species such as whale sharks, marine turtles, dugongs, dolphins, and sharks. They discuss how responsible marine tourism, stronger public awareness, and science-based conservation can protect biodiversity while creating sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities. Dr. AA also shares practical ways everyone can help, from respecting wildlife in their natural habitats to reducing plastic waste and supporting responsible tourism. 

GUEST BIO:

AA Yaptinchay, DVM, MSc is a marine wildlife conservationist with more than 30 years of experience protecting some of the Philippines' most threatened marine species, including whale sharks, dugongs, marine turtles, dolphins, and sharks. A pioneer in responsible marine wildlife tourism, his work helped secure legal protection for whale sharks in the Philippines and has influenced national policies on marine conservation. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines (MWWP) and continues to champion science-based conservation, wildlife rescue, and sustainable tourism. 

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why marine wildlife is vital to healthy ocean ecosystems.
• How responsible tourism can support marine conservation.
• The biggest threats facing the Philippines' marine wildlife.
• Why awareness is key to protecting endangered marine species.
• Simple actions everyone can take to help protect our oceans.

QUOTES:

• The Philippines is in the center of marine biodiversity globally. —Dr. AA Yaptinchay
• Conservation-wise, the Philippines now has more marine protected areas. —Dr. AA Yaptinchay
• I would go for allowing marine wildlife to be in their natural habitat in the most natural way without any disturbance. —Dr. AA Yaptinchay
• When you enter the home of the marine species, it is their home. We need to respect these animals and their habitat. —Dr. AA Yaptinchay
• Remove any form of threat. Hunting is a threat. Plastic pollution is a threat. Coastal development is a threat. —Dr. AA Yaptinchay

LINKS or RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Connect with Dr. AA Yaptinchay:

• Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines on Facebook
• Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines on Instagram

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Transcript

Chit Juan 0:02

Welcome to the Good and Green Podcast. I'm your host, Chit Huan. In this show, we share stories of farmers, food advocates, social entrepreneurs, and community leaders working to build a more sustainable future. Let's discover how to live lives that are truly good and green. Our guest today is a good friend, Dr. A. A. Yaptin Chai. He is a doctor of veterinary medicine, master's in science, marine sciences, is a marine wildlife species specialist with 30 years of experience in the conservation and management of long-lived and threatened species, including dugong, marine turtles, cetaceans, and sharks. His work on whale shark fisheries and tourism in 1996 led to the protection of the species in the Philippines. He is a strong advocate for the non-consumptive utilization of marine wildlife and influenced both government and civil society in the development of responsible tourism policies and practices. He is the founder and executive director of MWWP and established partnerships with DABAR, NFRDI, and the DNR to develop knowledge products, including the Philippine Aquatic Wildlife Rescue and Response Manual series of 2014. He is a co-convener of the Save Sharks Network of the Philippines, which has established the Bienal Philippine Shark Summit series since 2015. He is currently the chair of the Philippine Aquatic Red List Committee, Subcommittee on Cetaceans, and a member of the PRLC Subcommittee on Cartilaginous Fishes. Today, our guest is Dr. A.A. Yaptinchai. Welcome to the Good and Green Podcast, Dr. AA. I'm so happy that we finally got to talk again and that you can share with our listeners about marine life.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Thank you, Chit, for having me.

Chit Juan 2:21

Yeah, and I know that, of course, you're a doctor of veterinary medicine. And then the MS is in marine sciences.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

In aquatic ecology.

Chit Juan 2:33

Wow. Was it something after your vet med degree? What got you into it?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, I like working with animals, and that led me to take up the veterinary medicine program in UP. But I'm also very interested, and I think my passion really lied on the aquatic world, particularly in the marine environment. So when I was looking for a job right after graduation, there was an opportunity for me to work with marine turtles under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. So that got me into marine conservation. So my first job was that. But again, my background was in medicine, right? Yeah. Actually, I took my master's like more than a decade after I started working. So I needed to learn more about ecosystems, marine environment, and I can only get that if I educate myself further, which I when I took up my master's in aquatic sciences.

Chit Juan 3:34

So are there many like you? I mean, I'm sure with our 7,100-something islands, we have a lot of marine life. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I would like to think there are a lot, but if I would really look at it, there's a handful of us, and I almost work with all of them. So I know everyone who has a veterinary degree who are also in.

Chit Juan 3:56

Therefore, it's a very small group for such a vast area that you're working with, which is the waters around us, no? And I really am interested because I noticed that you use the word non-consumptive, because Filipinos are really fish eaters, right? But I remember asking you some time ago what is a sustainable fish, and you said, I don't know because you actually specialize in the bigger ones. You call them cetaceans, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Well, I call them marine wildlife. That's what my NGO actually is named after. I have this NGO called Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines, and we focus on the conservation of what we also call endangered, threatened, and protected marine species here in the Philippines. So some of these species are actually considered also like fishery resources, but fishery meaning we harvest them for food.

Chit Juan 4:56

I think they're threatened, but we harvest them for food anyway.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Maybe when I talk about marine wildlife, we're talking about general taxonomic groups. For example, like sharks and rays are ETPs in short, but there are like 200 species in the Philippines. Oh. And more than a thousand globally. So some of them are protected. Half of that, those number of species are protected, but the rest are not, for example. So conservation comes in when we want to strike that balance between the use of species in a consumptive way. Like we have to extract them, harvest them, kill them, eat them. Or do we provide alternatives, which in my head are the non-consumptive means of using our natural resources? And fortunate enough for me, my marine wildlife species are very interesting animals. I would like to point out tourism, for example. A lot of these species are targeted as tourism attractions. Since the Philippines is an archipelago, we're surrounded by the sea. If we compare us to Africa, for example, you do a safari in Africa, you do scuba diving to see wild animals in the Philippines. And these are attractions in the country.

Chit Juan 6:16

So it's a big tourism draw, actually, to go diving, for example, and see all this biodiversity in our waters, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I would like to think that it's a major attraction in the Philippines. I'm not sure if our government promotes the Philippines that way.

Chit Juan 6:35

I know we're promoted as a dive spot, and we've had that reputation since Cebu was called the island in the Pacific back in the 70s and 80s, when it wasn't even mentioned that it was part of the Philippines. But then people would go diving. I know European media would expose our dive spots like Anilau, like Tubataha. So are these the places where your subjects or your species of interest, that's where they are, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

The Philippines is the what we call in the center of the marine biodiversity globally. So basically, generally, all of these species can be found in the whole of the Philippine seas. Of course, there are important habitats for specific species. For example, ducks like to hang out in seagrass areas because that's what they feed on. Most of our beaches are nesting beaches for the Pauican or marine turtles. So I think the blend of tourism and having the marine wildlife attraction there has something to do also with accessibility to the sites, how tourism is built on this island. So I think the Philippines is since we're an archipelago, so the main attraction here I would suppose would be the beaches. Because it's such a niche market, also, right? So if you're a scuba diver, you need to be certified. I know right now free diving is very popular, but for that, you also need to be certified. And this is the best way actually to enjoy the marine animals while they're living naturally in their habitats.

Chit Juan 8:21

That's right. Like, you know, people promote the Great Barrier Reef, for example, as something that is a must-see in your lifetime if you're a diver or swimmer. So I guess even Tubataha and uh Verde Islands, for example, would be on the checklist of most divers, as you said, that niche market of scuba divers. So, in your 30 years working on this advocacy, what have you seen? Has it been going well for you? Or how can we help? How can an ordinary citizen like myself help in the preservation of this very important marine species?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Okay, when I started out, I think being in the conservation profession was something unique. And you only do that if you're getting paid for it, like professionally. But over the years, I've seen conservation becoming more of a in the public discourse, like more and more people are interested in it. Even corporations are supporting conservation work right now. And the younger people are, I think, more aware. And I think with social media, internet, and access to a lot of information, everyone has access to see how beautiful it is to be underwater. So I think it's better now.

Chit Juan 9:46

Better than 30 years ago, you mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, better than 30 years ago. But also conservation-wise, definitely the Philippines has now like more marine protected areas. We have more species protected under the law. There are mechanisms right now that would make protection and conservation and management of marine habitats easier.

Chit Juan 10:13

So in a scale of 1 to 10, AA, like if you found it 30 years ago to be a two, I mean conservation and preservation.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

A four before.

Chit Juan 10:23

A four, and then now you would be at what eight?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Eight, correct.

Chit Juan 10:27

Okay. And probably the road to 10 would be to get more young marine scientists involved. Is that a possibility?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Well, one, we actually have the policy frameworks and the laws in place in most cases. So the issue in the Philippines is always like the implementation, right? So we have the laws, but are we implementing them properly? And one of the things we need to think about, I think, when we need to follow the laws is public awareness about one, the existence of the law and the consequences of this law. For example, who would know like what are the protected shark species in the Philippines? As I said earlier, there are like 200 species in the Philippines, but only 64 of them are protected, for example. But who would know about these 64 species? Can you differentiate that from the other?

Chit Juan 11:19

I know. We just know that it looks like Jaws. Then for me, I'm a I'm not a diver. I go to the beach occasionally, but for me, a shark is something that has a lot of teeth and the movie Jaws. That for me is a shark. But I'm sure there are other ways of identifying sharks. So how can you reach out to our listeners to get them involved with your advocacy?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I guess in general, that's why I pointed out tourism, because it gives us access to these animals. If it's in a sustainable, regulated way, then it's okay. Because tourism is also a double-edged sword, right? It can go the wrong way.

Chit Juan 12:00

Yes. So are you working with, let's say, government agencies, Department of Tourism? Is that something that you have also explored?

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Yes, definitely. Everything that I do is in line with government programs. Actually, most of the projects that I'm implementing is done in partnership with national government agencies, especially with the Bureau of Fisheries and also the Biodiversity Management Bureau.

Chit Juan 12:25

And also, I would guess Department of Tourism.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yes, for the tourism part, we did come up with the Department of Tourism regulations on how to conduct yourself properly when interacting with marine wildlife.

Chit Juan 12:40

Okay, that's good. Because I remember when I had that one experience to see the Butanding in Sorce Gone many years ago, they had the Butand BIO or Butunding Information Officer.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Interact officer.

Chit Juan 12:54

Oh, interacting.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I'm one of the BIOs. Okay. We trained them decades ago to how to do the natural guide lining.

Chit Juan 13:04

So so if the Department of Tourism or the local government or a resort even would tap your group, you can actually do briefings and training for what you know BIO, SIO, Shark, was it Interaction?

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Inter Interaction Officer.

Chit Juan 13:23

Interaction Officer.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah. Absolutely. Actually, the Department of Tourism has a module, a training module related to marine wildlife tourism interaction. So not only swimming or interacting with Butandings, but also with dolphin watching, how to interact with nesting turtles in terms of tourism.

Chit Juan 14:34

Oh, that's good. Because the nesting turtles, I know that people have like in Montemar, in Bataan, they see turtles like hatching. I saw them also in Mati, Davao, Oriental, but I only see them. I do not know as a consumer, as an ordinary, as a layperson, what can we do when you say, you know, if there are three things we must remember on the non-consumptive part, would number one be stop eating shark's fin soup?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I would go like higher on the principles, maybe. So I would go for allowing marine wildlife to be in their natural habitat in the most natural way without any disturbance.

Chit Juan 15:21

In other words, leave them alone.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Leave them alone.

Chit Juan 15:24

You can watch from a distance.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Right.

Chit Juan 15:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

So in the Department of Tourism regulations, so even the distance and the duration of your observation, the protocols are there.

Chit Juan 15:37

But of course, you can't help it, AA, that there are tourists who just want to post on top of a, I don't know if it's possible to be on top of a dugong or a whale, you know, post for Instagram for views. What what is the worst thing that has happened?

SPEAKER_00 15:53

I know I kind of bling Instagram for people trying to be too close to these animals and touching them or feeding them. What's a safe distance? Well, it depends on the species. For example, for a nesting turtle, you need to be like at least two meters away. Okay. For a butunding, it's like three meters away from the body and four meters away from a tail. If you're scuba diving with a shark, it's about ten meters away from the animal and same with the dolphin.

Chit Juan 16:21

But AA, scuba divers, because they take these courses and before they get certified and all that, they are taught about marine conservation, right? Uh, not necessarily. Oh, they're taught how to live and breathe underwater.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

So sometimes you're worried about the technical stuff about the diving, right? And there's a layer of knowledge that we need to know also. Like when you enter the home of the marine species, it is their home. So we need to respect these animals and their habitat and making sure that we don't damage or affect them negatively when we do our interaction. So there are threats, eh? It's not only the tourism, like there are external threats, including like fishery. They can get cut in fishing gear, and there are like even bigger threats like climate change, plastic pollution, and plastic pollution.

Chit Juan 17:14

I can understand. That's why I I cut my, you know, the masks. I know that they say you have to cut the straps of your face masks, and you have to cut all this plastic that goes into the six-pack cans or something. That's what you mean, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Or I'll go higher again. Don't buy any of those stuff in the first place.

Chit Juan 17:35

Oh, don't buy any of the plastic stuff. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, that's why your water tumbler is, I think, so popular because people just don't want to buy their drinks in the plastic container anymore.

Chit Juan 17:47

Yeah, it first it was like a status symbol that you had the water bottle, and now almost everyone has it, even if some do not know that they're actually just saving the earth, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

But I see a trend now also with like coffee drinks and milk tea stuff. I think it's more standard now that people expect it to be served in a plastic sealed container than in a mug. Like I think I grew up in a generation where you drink everything from a mug and a washable receptor.

Chit Juan 18:20

Well, maybe the next trend for the water bottle will be to bring one to your milk tea place and have them fill your water bottle with tea.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Should happen now. Yeah. So that's the second principle I want to introduce. Like, we just need to get rid of the threats because nature, they usually are very resilient. So once we remove any of the threats that's actually causing their degradation and decline, they recover naturally.

Chit Juan 18:47

AA first is to leave them, let them be, leave them in their habitat at peace. Naturally, like how to watch from a distance.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Correct. Okay, then second, remove any form of threat. Remove the threat. Hunting is a threat, plastic pollution is a threat, coastal development is a threat for marine turtles, for example.

Chit Juan 19:08

So that includes reclaiming land?

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Oh, definitely. Because reclaiming land means like destroying hectares of area that used to be submerged and the home of various aquatic species.

Chit Juan 19:20

How important are these species, anyway, to us? I mean, a person might ask, you know, they're huge, they know where they live, but how important is it to preserve that biodiversity? You were talking about the food chain.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

We need to look at the earth as a whole. So the earth has a lot of functioning parts, and one big part of this would be all the species of plants and animals that live within that biosphere. And if you haven't checked yet or haven't heard yet, but all of these interacting elements and parts contribute to what we call an ecosystem. A natural ecosystem is actually something that we need to survive because they provide us with one, the air that we breathe. Like trees produce oxygen, but more oxygen is produced actually by plankton, which lives in the ocean. They regulate the climate. We've heard about typhoons, and mangrove areas lining a coastline will actually protect a village from storm surges and tidal waves. Imagine that.

Chit Juan 20:30

So that's how important mangroves are. Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

So these are like what we call ecosystem services. So they're not only services that we need as an extra, but we actually need them for human survival. So if we don't take care of the little components of that ecosystem, especially biodiversity. As I said, like the Philippines has the highest marine biodiversity globally, which means also we're a bit more resilient than other areas of the world. So we have to give that importance, Lila.

Chit Juan 21:04

Yeah, all hope is not lost because we're resilient. Whatever damage was done in the past could still be repaired.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yes. And we just need to, again, remove all the threats.

Chit Juan 21:15

Threats, okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

So nature can grow back.

Chit Juan 21:18

That's good. That's good to know. And I hope that a lot more people, maybe hopefully through our podcast, we can reach more people to help protect the seas, to help protect the species. So, AA, what are the three good and green tips you can give our listeners about your particular area of study and concern and advocacy? Well, you said let them be, leave them in their habitat to remove the threats. And what is another tip you can give them?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

A consumer tip. Be aware. We're inundated by a lot of information now with whatever latest dance trends. But if we have space for that, maybe we have space to learn more about the Philippine seas, our marine species, where they are found. It's different living in a city and also different if you're a fisherman, for example.

Chit Juan 22:15

But our fisher folk, they are familiar with living with these creatures.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

They live with these animals constantly, like on a daily basis. And unfortunately, they're marginalized, right? And what they say, like the poorest of the poorest in terms of in the agricultural scale. Sometimes for a survival, whatever they catch from the sea, even if it's a protected species, they would sometimes consume.

Chit Juan 22:42

And that's why you said non consumptive, because what you really prefer is that people get educated. Not to consume, but to just look and let them be, because the food chain will take care of preservation also.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

But consumption means also we need to demonstrate that there are some benefits from using these animals, either in the consumptive way, eating them, harvesting them, or the non-consumptive way, meaning just viewing them for tourism, because people earn from tourism as well, right? And that's true. At least for the fisher folks in coastal communities. If we want them to stop the consumptive waste for marine animals, then we need to actually provide them with alternatives. And so far, at least for the marine species that I work with, it's always tourism. But also, again, tourism is not applicable in all the beaches and all the sites and all the coastal communities in the Philippines, right? So for some of these communities, yeah, to be something else.

Chit Juan 23:45

Yeah, because they still eat like rays, right? Like I know in a galog it's called buntotpagi. Is that a ray?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

We have this dish called kinuno.

Chit Juan 23:55

Oh yes, kinuno.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

So that's typically ray meat cooked in coconut milk, but they can use varied meat for that dish as an ingredient. So it can be tried.

Chit Juan 24:06

I've seen it in some slow food recipes. I better tell them and make sure that they are not using a ray.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Yeah, well, not all sharks and rays are protected. But you know, like these species, because that's why they're threatened because of their biology. They reproduce really slow. Uh-huh. So if we extract from their population, it's more difficult for them to replenish. So I would recommend like they use something else. Maybe instead of shark or ray meat, they just use a common fish as an alternative.

Chit Juan 24:41

Okay. Maybe it's also a cultural thing. Is it cultural in some communities that if they find a manta ray or something and they kill it, could it also be a cultural practice?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Some are culture, uh, but you know, culture also needs to change. Maybe 100 years ago, like these species were too common, and we have had that issue of climate change or habitat destruction or mining 100 years ago. So the populations can actually accommodate the species, can actually take an amount of harvesting from them. But now it's complex. There are so many threats.

Chit Juan 25:20

So many threats.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

That's why they're protected, actually. It's the basis of the protection. So we need to like give them space to breathe for maybe about 100 years. Maybe in 100 years we can harvest them again. So that's the conservation work that I'm doing, trying to find the balance of what people need, addressing threats, and still ensuring that our marine wildlife still thrive.

Chit Juan 25:45

Thank you. Thank you so much for what you do for all these species that otherwise people are not conscious about. So, AA, I guess our listeners will want to know how do they find you in social media, if they want to volunteer, if they want to learn more.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

So, we have a Facebook page, it's called Marine Wildlife Watch of the Philippines. We're both on Facebook and on Instagram. So if you want to learn more about what we do and learn more about the species that we protect, just follow our social media sites.

Chit Juan 26:19

Thank you so much. I mean, I know we have so much more to talk about. I know that you're also in charge of identifying the ISRA.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Oh, the Isra. So yeah. In a nutshell, the Philippines is so important. We should just protect the whole Philippine seas, right? But that's not possible. So we try to look for the best places in the Philippines where we need to focus our conservation on. So we have one for marine mammals. It's called Important Marine Mammal Area, SIMA, and we have important shark and ray areas or isras as we call them. You can Google that, check that online, which sites are the most important in the Philippines.

Chit Juan 27:00

And we can try and help save them. We, as consumers or as ordinary people, can learn more about the mammal areas, important mammal areas, and the important shark and ray areas. Thank you so much, AA. Not very many people can teach us about all this wildlife and how it contributes to tourism. So thank you very much, and we hope to have you on the show again.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Alright, thank you, Chit, and hope to do this again soon.

Chit Juan 27:32

Thank you for listening to the Good and Green podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the show and leave a review. It helps more people find us and feel free to share it with a friend. Until next time, keep it good and green.