The sustainability problem is the consequence of the interdependence between environment and development. As the Brundtland Report has emphasized, development cannot subsist on a deteriorating environmental base; the environment cannot be protected when growth leaves out of account the costs of environmental protection.
Concerns on the sustainable utilization of resources are heightened especially when several local government units (LGUs) are dependent on a single or common resource. Especially when bodies of water or forests are concerned, resources and ecosystems do not distinguish between politico-administrative boundaries, putting forth the concept of common pool resources (CPR) of which Lake Taal would be a classic example. By virtue of the Lake being a part of the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape, a Unified Rules and Regulations for Fisheries (URRF), considered a CPR institution, has been formulated upon the spearheading of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This CPR is spatially situated spanning a number of LGU territories and the CPR institution operates traversing all of them.
It is within the described context that the sustainability of an existing CPR institution was analyzed and implementation mechanisms undertaken at the local level understood to determine prospects for collaborative management between a national government agency and a local government unit.
The reformulated design principles, fundamentally the 8 design principles of American political economist Elinor Ostrom, were used to assess the sustainability of the URRF using a set of indicators. Using the Municipality of Talisay as a sample case which other lakeside municipalities can replicate, analysis of the implementation of the URRF was carried out using the Integrated Water Resources Management pillars.