 Thanks a lot Patricia. Hi everyone. So I'll be presenting a paper called arm groups taxation and fishing in the Zamboanga Peninsula in the Philippines So I'm good to Marche and I'm presenting on behalf of a wider team led by Anna Maria Ibanez from Universidad de los Andes Teresita Narváez from Western Mindanao State University and Patricia Justino from UNU wider and IDS and there was also Maria Adelaida Ortega, Manuel de Vera, Ryan Tingelin, Benjamin Cross and Jorge Maldonado. I just wanted to say that I'm not an expert on the Philippines I work on the effects of island conflict mostly in Central Africa But I was very happy to be part of this project and to present on behalf of this team So I just wanted to say something about the rationale of the project So we know that there is a strong and negative environmental impact of island conflict Generally tied to destruction, tied to the cost of war, tied to pollution, to deregulation And that there is a direct impact also on priority environmental regions such as the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the Sahel and the Philippines Archipelago, but there is limited disaggregated evidence of the impact on the environment We know that conflict affected regions are heterogeneous They're mocked by strong variation in terms of political, social, economic organization and that can condition variegated impacts on the environment We also know that control over environmental resources such as land, forests and the sea are key stakes in violent conflict And that environmental conservation has often been exposed by external actors Be it colonial states, contemporary states, even NGOs Along with other forms of impositions and notably taxation and that's these impositions And conservation impositions can be part of grievances that underpin supports for insurgent groups Another important aspect is the role of local communities So we know that the communal management of environmental resources is key for environmental protection We can think about the work of Eleanor Ostrom or Abinah Agarwal But communities are severely impacted by the presence of armed groups through violence, of course But also through taxation, which is really a hallmark of contemporary violent conflict But also through other forms of interference and governance by armed groups that has been documented by the literature on wartime political order and rebel governance and this is likely to impact communal management of environmental resources yet There is limited disaggregated evidence on this issue and particularly in the fishing sector which has received Relatively little attention in the literature on violent conflict. So this led us to our two research questions first How does the presence of armed groups affect the fishing sector and environmental protection and what are the implications for policy interventions? Today I'll be presenting some preliminary results of what is a non-going analysis and key work done by this summer by Maria Adelaida Ortega and this will be published as a UNU wider working paper hopefully in early 2024 So a bit about the project So the project is a partnership between Universidad de los Andes in Colombia the Western Minda now a state university in the Philippines in Zambonga City and the Institute of Development Studies in the UK The data collection was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and this paper is Funded also by the UNU wider The project focuses on municipal fishing communities in Zambonga Peninsula, which is in the south of the Philippines on the island of Mindanao It's to it's the peninsula to the west of the island of Mindanao The peninsula is actually the largest sardines exporting region in the Philippines It represents 70% of the Philippines production of sardines There is a large industrial fishing sector which actually is its presence is historically tied to the history of colonialism in the region and There has been long-standing Historical tensions with the municipal fishing sector, which also is very much developed around along the coastal areas of the Zambonga Peninsula But also the Sulu archipelago So there's this long-standing tension between the industrial fishing sector the municipal fishing sector and in 2011 There was a conservation measure imposed Seasonal fishing ban and I'll come back to that if there is some time So the project use a mixed methods approached with on one side a quantitative component a survey of 1,500 fishing households in 59 barangays. There was also Community surveys at the barangay level with community leaders in these 59 barangays in the Zambonga Peninsula And a smaller qualitative component which was composed of 32 key informant interviews with Fisher folk military authorities industrial fishers State representatives and a set of other actors experts on the question on this question in the Philippines And the expertise of the Western Mindanao State University on fishing in the Zambonga Peninsula was very much leveraged by the project as Well as the expertise of the University that they losundice on the effects of island conflict, but also on fishing So Importantly the Zambonga Peninsula as the island of Mindanao has been marked by a long-standing history of armed insurgency Which is historically tied to moral nationalism? historical nationalism and resistance and including armed resistance against Spanish occupation against the United States against Japan and Since 1946 the independence of the Philippines against the central government of the Philippines Conceived to some extent as being a colonial actor within the region and there are these large large and long-standing Rebel groups the Moro national liberation front the MNLF and the moral Islamic liberation from the front the MILF and Then a constellation of other armed groups some notorious ones being the Abu Sayyaf group Which has historical links to Al Qaeda and more recently the Islamic States And the bank Samora Islamic freedom fighters and then a constellation of other armed groups There is also on the island of Mindanao a long-standing communist insurgency the new people's army that emerged in 1969 the project itself actually happened at a critical juncture, so Most of the data collection was carried out in 2019 and 2020 There were then delays tied to the COVID pandemic and the restrictions at the moment But this was a historical moment because in 2014 there was a peace agreement signed between the moral Islamic liberation front and the government which led to the creation of the Bank Samora autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao Which is an autonomous region within the Philippines and very much a historical moment in the in the history of the country So a critical juncture But also an interesting configuration of the project because the Zambuanga Peninsula where we carried out the study is Not part of the Bank Samora autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao But it's adjacent to it and it has the presence of the armed groups on the peninsula and here on this map you can see These are the bearing gays where the survey was carried out and you can see in red So in the provinces of Zambuanga del Norte Zambuanga del Sur and Zambuanga Sibugai And you can see in red those barangays where there is the presence of armed groups So I wanted to say some things about the dynamics of violence in Zambuanga Peninsula. They're very complex There are several levels. There is first of all combat for control territorial control political influence and resources between these large insurgent groups the national army and then a constellation of other groups There is also a political economy of piracy of extortion of kidnapping for ransom that has emerged over the last decades And there is also a strong implantation of the drug trade particularly in Zambuanga City There is also the the persisting importance of clan politics and also clan related violence Ritualized violence known as Rideau Overall there has been a general decrease in violence since the 2010s. This is a Philippine military officials who have been telling us this and you can see the evolution of the different types of violence that we found In the barangays, which we studied on these graphs And what we found was clear evidence of targeting by armed actors of the fishing industry First of all violent extortion by the larger armed groups, but also by a constellation of the other smaller groups targeting industrial fishing so industrial fishing vessels and then complex elite arrangements between the industrial fishing sector and the National Army on one side, but even The non-state armed groups on the other and these have been studied by Manuel de Vera who was part of this project And who wrote a dissertation on this topic There are also conflicts in the fishing sector Conflicts around fishing zones fishing gear catch that can lead to violence and this is something that has been observed across the world There's a recent article by Lou and Yamazaki On Indonesia where they document similar types of fishing wars and fishing conflicts Yet there is little empirical evidence of the effects on municipal fishing, which was the focus of this project so here I'm going to present some Descriptives and preliminary data on that that that we we found so first of all we found evidence of a strong implantation of the armed groups Particularly the MILF more Islamic Liberation Front and then groups designated as pirates Which is actually a wide range of groups that can be of various size and varying Affiliation with the larger armed insurgencies and we can see that the presence It's much stronger in Zambuanga, Sibugei and Zambuanga del Sur than in Zambuanga del Norte We find for example here you can see on the graph that 69.2% of community leaders in Zambuanga del Sur say that the armed groups are present in their barangay against Only 8.7% in Zambuanga del Norte The presence of these groups is very much covert rather than overt This is something that I'll come back to at the end There is evidence also that the armed groups provide various forms of public services in particular various forms of protection But sometimes they actually build schools or they can be involved in the building of public infrastructure And then there is evidence of far-reaching social networks of these groups within the population and we use basic measures of social networks Here you can see that for example in Zambuanga del Sur 26.9% of the households that were interviewed say that they have an acquaintance either a family member or a friend that is part of one of these armed groups So this is really an indication of a very very strong social penetration One could say of these armed groups a social penetration also within the fishing sector because In Zambuanga del Sur for example 18.9% of the households interviewed say that the traders that buy their fish because these are municipal fishing households Are related to the armed groups so an invocation of the armed groups within the fish trade? We then found a further evidence of interference what we call interference in the fishing sector through the form of taxation and rudimentary forms of governance The main form of presence is taxation. So in Zambuanga del Sur 17.1% of households say that armed groups collect taxes It's not a huge number, but it's nevertheless a consequential number. I would say And 15.4% in Zambuanga Sibuge The taxes collected by armed groups are levied both in money and in fish and they're informed enforced by sanctions both violence and various forms of harassment on fisherfolk There is also some evidence of interference in the governance of fishing sector of the fishing sector We can see here in panel B some descriptives around governance For example in Zambuanga del Sur 11.4% of households say that armed groups influence when people can't fish much less with regards to the size of a fish catch And We found on the contrary a little evidence of popular support for the regulation of the fishing sector by armed actors It's only 4.6% in Zambuanga del Sur and 1.6% in Zambuanga Sibuge of Households who say that it's justified that armed groups would regulate fishing Nevertheless what we find is a clear presence of these armed groups interference in the form of taxation and five minutes and In the form of various forms of governance, so I just wanted to say something about where the I'm running late a little bit obviously So we also looked at the impact of the presence of these armed groups notably on the fish trade and on fish stocks This is more regression analysis with fixed effects and controls We found for example a negative impact on the fish trade and this is municipal fish trade So how municipal fisher folks sell their fish on the market and we find that? Households are more likely to sell at a loss or be forced to sell at a loss in those barangays Where there is the presence of these on groups and these are results of 14.8 percent and 12.6 percent That are statistically significant They also sell at a lower price in those barangays where there is the presence of these armed groups This is a negative effect also statistically significant so what this points to is forms of levies or Indirect taxation on the fishing sector on municipal fisher folk that is being enacted by these armed groups at the same time We were trying to get to this question of environmental protection and conservation So we looked at fish stocks and perceptions of fish stocks And what we find is that households are more likely to report that fish stocks have decreased over the last ten years in those Barangays where there is the presence of these on groups This is also a positive and statistically significant Effect of 13.3 percent So this is not an objective measure of fish fish stocks and environmental protection Yet it is an indication in as much as fisher folk actually know the waters in which they fish That there is an impact on the fish stocks of the presence of these on groups So very quickly about where we want to go from here So we want to consolidate the results on the environmental impact by bringing in other data sets We want to look at various forms of exchanges that might exist for these forms of levies or taxation by the on groups and Perhaps evidence of nascent form or existing forms of social contracts But more importantly what we want to get at is the mechanisms that mediate the impact of the its own groups on Fishing and fish stocks notably a political economy arguments via which basically The presence of these groups facilitates illegal and environmentally destructive fishing practices Such as dynamite fishing or the use of toxic chemicals and these types of things But more importantly this impact on collective action and communal management of fishing resources and here we have variables on social capital on trust on participation of fisher folk in Associations and we're trying to see whether that might be the mediating explanation of this impact of the presence of these groups on the environment So I just wanted to give a few broader policy implications so with regards to Mindanao itself Mindanao is still at a critical juncture of its history The peace process is both on track and in peril as a recent international crisis group reports has said There are threats tied to ongoing pockets of insecurity activism by on groups in certain areas underlying political dynamics of the peace process delays tied to COVID-19 which creates frustration among the stakeholders of this peace process and the fishing sector Importantly is really one of the key stakes and the ongoing negotiations particularly with regards to delimitation of municipal waters and taxation of industrial fishing But here I want to extrapolate a little bit and make some points about taxation in conflict affected areas First of all a very important but obvious but important point is that the social contract that's normally underpins state taxation is Severely challenged in zones of violent conflict I think that's really one thing that needs to be thought about in any type of taxation policy in relation to post-conflict context But also context of ongoing conflict Second of all there is an invisible tax burden on populations and on economic activity in those zones that we saw You know we have evidence of this tax burden to some extent that also needs to be taken into account in policy in relation to these To these regions There is also a durable implantation of the armed groups. We saw the social penetration of the armed groups This means that There can be various forms of support for these groups and implantation that can persist beyond formal peace or elite arrangements that end the conflict at a higher level But at the local level these arrangements and these forms of support and social implantation can persist and The durability of the protection and taxation Arrangements in is not just tied to the implantation of these groups It can also serve a purpose notably with regards to protection for example of fisherfolk So these are things that are very important to take into account in any type of policy that is related to zones of ongoing Conflict and post-conflict as well And finally a point about environmental protection and violent conflicts Alongside this hidden tax burden that exists in those zones where there is the presence and activism of these armed groups There is often a hidden toll on the environment, which is important Given the protracted nature of violent conflict and the fact that most zones of violent conflict today are Long-standing and show no signs of resolution There is really a question of you know how to protect the environment in regions that are not directly controlled by the state So, thank you very much