Apo Island
Video: Apo Island View Point by No Postcode
Apo Island is a small volcanic island 7 km off the southeast tip of Negros. In 1982, its fishing community set up one of the first community-run marine sanctuaries in the Philippines, and the reefs around the island have been protected ever since.
Today Apo is one of the best-known dive sites in the country, loved for its turtles, its corals and the clear blue water along its walls.
Apo Island is not to be confused with Apo Reef, a much larger reef off Mindoro, about 500 km away.
Apo Island and MCP
Apo is the crown jewel of the region's marine protected areas. It has been protected and studied for more than 40 years, so we don't run surveys there. Our survey effort goes where data is still missing, along the coasts of Zamboanguita, Siaton and Santa Catalina. Since 2026, MCP has held a permanent seat on the Apo Island Protected Area Management Board, and in 2023 we served on the advisory board for the Apo Island jetty project.
Once a month, we take all our volunteers to Apo for a day of diving. For our divemaster candidates, it's a working day: they run the boat logistics, brief the groups and guide the divers. Our technical divers head for the steep walls and drop-offs. For everyone else, it's simply a day of great diving, our way of saying thank you for all the survey dives in between.
Diving at Apo Island
Apo's reefs run from shallow gardens of hard and soft corals down to steep walls and deep canyons, home to huge gorgonian sea fans, barrel sponges and branching Acropora. More than 600 fish species have been recorded around the island, along with hundreds of coral species. Green and hawksbill turtles rest and feed in the shallows, often by the dozen.
Off the north of the island, currents bring clear water and big schools of jacks, groupers and fusiliers. At some sites you can swim through streams of bubbles rising from the sand, a sign of the volcano beneath the island. Imagine floating in a glass of bubbly. And on a lucky dive, a thresher shark may rise out of the blue.
Whether you're a newly certified Open Water diver or have hundreds of dives behind you, Apo won't disappoint.
Well-known dive sites
- Coconut Point
- Rock Point
- Chapel
- Cogon
- Mamsa Point
How the sanctuary began
In the late 1970s, Silliman University's Marine Laboratory began working with Apo's fishing community, whose catches had fallen after years of destructive fishing. The scientists, led by the late National Scientist Dr Angel Alcala, explained how a no-take sanctuary could let fish recover and spill over into the surrounding fishing grounds.
In 1982 the community set aside 450 m of shoreline, reaching 500 m out to sea, as a sanctuary. It became the second community-managed marine reserve in the Philippines, after Sumilon Island, which Dr Alcala also helped establish. The island's Marine Management Council followed in 1986 and ended destructive fishing around the whole island.
In 1994, Proclamation 438 declared Apo Island and about 691 hectares of its surrounding waters a Protected Landscape and Seascape under the NIPAS Act. The Expanded NIPAS Act of 2018 wrote that protection into law. Today the area is managed by a Protected Area Management Board of local government, academic and community members.
Apo's success has since inspired hundreds of community-run sanctuaries across the Philippines.
Quick facts
- Location
- 7 km off the southeast tip of Negros. Apo is a barangay of Dauin, Negros Oriental.
- Getting there
- Boats leave from Malatapay in Zamboanguita. The crossing takes around 40 minutes.
- Size
- About 1.5 km north to south and 1 km east to west, with around 74 hectares of land.
- Highest point
- About 120 m above sea level.
- Population
- 920 (2020 census).
- Languages
- Cebuano (Binisaya). Many residents also speak English and Tagalog.
- Protected area
- Apo Island Protected Landscape and Seascape, managed by its Protected Area Management Board.
- Weather
- Seasons and temperatures are on our Location and climate page.
Dive Apo with us
Spend your weeks surveying reefs along the coast of southern Negros with our team, and one day each month diving Apo.