Section 3. Definition of Terms. — As used in this Decree, the following terms are defined as follows:
Bureau — Means the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
Closed season — Refers to the period during which fishing is prohibited in a specified area or areas in Philippine waters, or to the period during which the catching or gathering of specified species of fish or fishery/aquatic products or the use of specified fishing gears to catch or gather fish or fishery/aquatic product is prohibited.
Commercial fishing — Fishing for commercial purposes in waters more than seven fathoms deep with the use of fishing boats more than three gross tons.
Electro fishing — Means the use of electricity generated by dry-cell batteries, electric generators or other sources of electric power to kill, stupefy, disable or render unconscious fish or fishery/aquatic products in both fresh and salt water areas.
Family-size fishpond — An area of fishpond that permits the efficient use of labor and capital resources of a family to produce an income sufficient to meet a family's need for food, clothing, shelter, health and education with reasonable reserves to absorb yearly fluctuation in income.
Fish and fishery/aquatic products — Fish includes all fishes and other aquatic animals, such as crustaceans (crabs, prawns, shrimps and lobsters), mollusks (clams, mussels, scallops, oysters, snails and other shellfish). Fishery/aquatic products include all other products of aquatic living resources in any form.
Fishing boat — Includes all boats, such as bancas, sailboats, motor boats or any other type of watercraft, whether licensed or not, used for fishing purposes: Provided, That any such boat used for the purpose of transporting the fish in the course of fishing operations shall be considered as a fishing boat.
Fish corral or "baclad" — Means a stationary weir or trap devised to intercept and capture fish, consisting of rows of stakes of bamboo, palma brava or other materials fenced with split bamboo mattings or wire nettings with one or more enclosures usually with easy entrance but difficult exit, and with or without leaders to direct the fish to the catching chambers or purse.
Fish pen — means fish enclosure made of closely-woven bamboo screens, nylon screens or nets, or other materials attached to poles staked to the water bottom for the purpose of growing and/or culture of fish to various sizes in both fresh and salt water areas.
Fishery — Is the business of catching, taking, handling, marketing and preserving fish or other fishery/aquatic products; the fishing grounds; and the right to fish or take such products therefrom.
Fishery industry — Includes fish produces, fish processors, fish traders, both wholesalers and retailers, and owners of refrigerating and cold storage plants serving the industry.
Fishing with the use of explosives — Means the use of dynamite, other explosives, or chemical compound that contains combustible elements or ingredients that, upon ignition by friction, concussion, percussion, or detonation of all or parts of the compound, kill, stupefy, disable or render unconscious any fish or fishery/aquatic product. It shall also refer to the use of any other substance and/or device that causes explosion capable of producing the said harmful effects on fish or fishery/aquatic products.
Fishing with the use of obnoxious or poisonous substance — Means the use of any substance, plants, extracts or juice thereof, chemicals, whether in raw or processed form, harmful or harmless to human beings, which kill, stupefy, disable, or render unconscious fish or fishery/aquatic products.
Fully developed fishpond — A clean, leveled area enclosed with dikes at least one foot higher than the highest flood water level in the locality and strong enough to resist water pressure at the highest flood tide, and consisting at least of a nursery pond, a transition pond, a rearing pond, or a combination of any or all of said classes of ponds, and water control system.
Municipal and/or small-scale fishing — Fishing utilizing fishing boats of three gross tons or less, or using gear not requiring the use of boats.
Municipal waters — Include not only streams, lakes, and tidal waters included within the municipality, not being the subject of private ownership, and not comprised within national parks, public forests, timber lands, forest reserves, or fishery reserves, but also marine waters included between two lines drawn perpendicular to the general coastline from points where the boundary lines of the municipality touch the sea at low tide and a third line parallel with the general coastline and three nautical miles from such coastline. Where two municipalities are so situated on the opposite shores that there is less than six nautical miles of marine waters between them, the third line shall be a line equi-distant from the opposite shores of the respective municipalities.
Disputes regarding jurisdiction over fresh-water lakes not included within the limits of a municipality or freshwater or tidal streams forming boundaries between municipalities, shall be referred by the councils of the municipalities concerned to the provincial board.
Persons — Include juridical entities such as associations, partnerships, cooperatives or corporations.
Philippine waters — Include all bodies of water within Philippine territory, such as rivers, streams, creeks, brooks, ponds, swamps, lagoons, gulfs, bays and seas and other bodies of water now existing, or which may hereafter exist in the provinces, cities, municipalities, municipal districts, and barrios; and the sea or fresh water around, between and connecting each of the islands of the Philippine archipelago, irrespective of its depth, breadth, length and dimension, and all other waters belonging to the Philippines by historic or legal title, including the territorial sea, the seabed, the insular shelves and other submarine areas over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction.
Refrigerating and cold storage plants — Consist of a set of refrigerating machinery housed in a building with cold storage compartments, for making ice and freezing and storing fish and fishery/aquatic products exclusively for the fishery industry.
Secretary — Means the Secretary of Natural Resources.