Impacts of a community-based TURF-Reserve policy on CPUE and fishers’ income: Evidence from a spatial fuzzy regression discontinuity design

Abstract

The Territorial Use Rights for Fishing with Reserve (TURF-Reserve) is a promising coastal resource management policy in the Philippines, designed to sustain marine resources and alleviate poverty in coastal communities. It features behavioral change campaigns, conservation, harvest regulation, and institutional development. With the increasing use of quasi-experimental methods in impact evaluations and their limited application to conservation efforts, this study is novel as it pioneers the application of Spatial Fuzzy Regression Design in the context of TURF-Reserve assessment in the 4th District of Camarines Sur. The analysis focused on the policy’s impact on catch per unit effort (CPUE) and the monthly income of municipal capture fishers. The evaluation identified the eligible population and defined the treatment and control areas based on estimated spillover effects and territorial water legislation. Using Two-Stage Least Squares, the study found that the TURF-Reserve policy increased CPUE of fishers by 11.45 kg/km². These findings suggest that the TURF-Reserve delivers more substantial environmental than economic benefits, primarily by supporting resource sustainability and enhancing food security in the intervention community. This is consistent with broader evidence on the effectiveness of conservation programs. Furthermore, the study affirms that the TURF-Reserve approach is well-suited to Philippine coastal communities. However, the findings are constrained by the study’s limited geographical scope and small sample size. To strengthen the robustness and generalizability of the results, future research should replicate the study across multiple TURF-Reserve sites, cover broader geographical areas with larger samples, and include direct measurement of the spillover effect.