USAID |

In the Philippines 62% of the country’s population lives in coastal zones and has a growth that is one of the highest in the world. This population growth puts pressure on the coastal resources as the demand becomes larger. With open access to fisheries in many of these areas over-extraction and destruction of coastal habitats has decreased productivity and fish catch rates. The Philippine government recognized the need for intervention, saying that “if current trends in population growth and coastal resource exploitation continue, the availability and affordability of fish to provide a crucial protein source will be lost.” In response to this cry several organizations developed marine reserves and single-sector approaches that showed minimal success. The Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM) initiative was founded to alleviate the crisis in the Philippines. IPOPCORM discovered that by integrating the delivery of family planning and conservation services it can improve reproductive health and coastal resource management more effectively than single sector approaches. The initiative proved to be successful across all sectors.