Before Holy Week, my friend and colleague in advocacy, Aubrey Jayne Padilla, Palawan project manager for Rare Philippines, approached me for help. Rare, an international NGO, is supporting work in Narra, Quezon, and Sofronio Española to strengthen locally led marine protection, sustainable fisheries, and community resilience.
The task was to help identify sustainable financing options for coastal and fisheries management in these partner municipalities. I said yes because I believe in the work, and because conservation financing had been part of my MS Environmental Science training at the University of the Philippines Los Baños.
I am writing this now as I turn over the final report and as my contract ends in July 2026. Looking back, I realized that knowing conservation finance in theory is one thing; turning it into practical options for communities and local governments is another.
That difference between theory and practice shaped my three main takeaways from the engagement.
My first takeaway is simple: conservation will not last if it depends only on passion.
Passion moves people. It brings communities together and inspires volunteers, advocates, local leaders, and field workers to protect mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass beds, fish sanctuaries, and municipal waters. But passion alone cannot pay for patrols, meetings, monitoring, training, equipment repair, livelihood support, or long-term care for restored habitats.
At some point, every conservation effort has to face a practical question: how will this be sustained after the current phase of external support?
This is not a criticism of local governments. If anything, the engagement made me appreciate how much coastal municipalities are expected to do with limited resources. Local offices are often stretched, attending not only to fisheries and the environment, but also to roads, health, schools, disaster response, agriculture, social services, permits, public safety, and other urgent needs. From the outside, it is easy to say that conservation should be highly prioritized. Up close, you see how difficult it is to balance it with many public responsibilities at the same time.
Across the three municipalities, each had its own context, strengths, and constraints. Some support for conservation was already present through local fees, regular programs, or activities spread across different offices. These realities should not be reduced to a simple success-or-failure story. The fairer observation is that local conservation financing already exists in different forms; the challenge is to organize these scattered pieces into a clearer plan for long-term coastal and fisheries management.
My second takeaway is that local conservation financing should begin with what already exists.
When people hear “conservation finance,” they may think of large grants, climate funds, or complex schemes. These may have a role, but for many municipalities, the more immediate question is practical: what local funds, revenues, and programs are already there?
Many coastal towns already collect fees or support programs related to fisheries, permits, facilities, livelihoods, and local environmental services. These may not always be labeled as “conservation funds” under municipal government databases, but they can still support conservation when properly planned, recorded, and connected to coastal and fisheries priorities. A fish landing area, for example, can serve many purposes at once: infrastructure, economic support, fisheries management, sanitation, and public service.
That is why careful documentation matters. Before asking for bigger grants or new programs, local governments and partners need to know what is already being spent, what is being collected, what can be used, and what gaps remain.
It also means that conservation advocates must be fair. If a program is not clearly labeled as “conservation,” it does not mean it has no conservation value. If funds are spread across offices, it does not automatically mean there is no support. Sometimes, the real task is not to start from zero, but to connect what is already there.
My third takeaway is that conservation financing must be explained in everyday language.
This was one of the personal challenges I faced. Conservation finance has many technical terms, such as “blended finance” and “portfolio approach,” which may be useful in formal reports but can easily distance people from the conversation. In practice, local users often need simpler answers: what funds are available, what activities can be supported, who will lead, and how communities will benefit.
So I had to keep asking myself: how do we make this useful?
For me, the answer is to bring the conversation down to practical questions. What needs funding? What already exists? Which activities can the local government support now? Which activities need a proposal to a national agency, donor, or private partner? Who will lead the work? What documents are needed? What risks should be avoided?
This is also why conservation financing should not be reduced to a generic search for grants. A list of funding options is easy to produce. The harder and more useful work is to understand local priorities, existing resources, staff capacity, community partners, and project rollout readiness.
In this engagement, the work had to follow a clear, step-by-step process: reviewing local documents, consulting stakeholders, screening realistic options, validating findings, and translating them into practical action plans. It was not a one-time desk search, but a process of asking, checking, refining, and making the recommendations fit the local context.
That is the kind of work more conservation areas need. Many municipalities in Palawan and elsewhere already have environmental programs, coastal communities, fisheries concerns, and local champions. What they may need is help organizing these into a practical conservation financing plan—realistic enough for local government use, and strong enough to attract support from national programs, donors, and partners.
This matters because coastal and fisheries resource management is not one expense. It includes enforcement, restoration, monitoring, fisherfolk support, sanitation, post-harvest facilities, education, and long-term maintenance. No single funding source can carry all of that.
A more realistic approach is to combine different sources of support: local funds for regular needs, national programs for bigger projects, grants for restoration and resilience, livelihood programs for households, and private partners for specific activities.
In the end, this engagement reminded me that conservation is sustained not by one big grant or one impressive plan, but by the patient work of building systems that last.
We need local plans connected to real budgets, project proposals prepared before deadlines, people’s organizations ready to manage support, restoration work monitored beyond planting day, and infrastructure that helps communities without increasing pressure on already stressed fisheries.
I also learned to be more humble. Consultants and advocates like me must write not only for funders or technical reviewers, but for the people who will actually use the recommendations. If a report cannot help a local office make a decision, then it has not done enough.
For Palawan, where many lives are tied to coasts and seas, conservation financing should not be treated as a side conversation. Conservation needs financing, not just passion, because local governments are already financially stretched and our coastal and fisheries resources are already under pressure.
Other municipalities do not have to wait for a crisis, a donor call, or a last-minute proposal deadline. They can begin by asking what conservation work they already support, what still needs help, and how scattered efforts can become a clear, practical funding plan.
The public also has a role in this work. We can follow fisheries and environmental rules, pay legitimate local fees, reduce waste, support responsible local businesses, join consultations, report violations, and ask how environmental funds are used. These may seem like small acts, but they help local governments protect our shared resources with limited means.
If we want our coastal and fisheries resources, as well as our coastal communities, to thrive beyond time-bound project support, we cannot bank on passion for conservation alone; we must also build practical funding systems that draw support from different sources and keep the conservation work alive.
Keith Anthony S. Fabro, LPT, MSc is the sole proprietor of Ekomunikatib Multimedia Consultancy Services, a Palawan-based firm specializing in environmental communication and environmental law compliance support. He is a former environmental reporter and desk editor of Palawan News. He provides consulting services to a wide range of clients from the public, private, and development sectors. Email: [email protected]
