The Lanuza Bay Development Alliance (LBDA) is a partnership among the seven municipalities that share jurisdiction over the Lanuza Bay - Carrascal, Cantilan, Madrid, Carmen, Lanuza, Cortes, and Tandag. Faced with increasing degradation of its fishery resources due to overfishing and the use of active and illegal fishing gear, the local governments decided to work together to address these concerns.

The area was originally a site of the Local Government Support Project. As the project drew to a close, the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) provided assistance to ensure the parthership's sustainability in terms of projects already initiated. Two VSO volunteers were placed in the municipality of Lanuza. One volunteer assisted in LBDA's organizational development and focused on setting up the office of the LBDA while the other VSO volunteer focused on forest management. The LBDA managed to secure funding from the European Union to finance a project on the development of forest land use plans for the seven municipalities.

The ESSC-PWG visit to the LBDA areas provided a brief opportunity to meet with some of the communities that the alliance is working with to improve the coastal resource management of Lanuza Bay. As many of the communities are dependent on natural resources, primarily fishing, for their livelihood, the alliance intends to assist these beneficiary groups in securing the resource base for their livelihood activities.

The full ESSC report and map is available.