Mazatlán, the origin of trawling in Baja California Sur

Since Graciela arrived in La Ventana Bay in northwestern Mexico in October, her view of the sea has been marked by the presence of shrimp boats that come and go in the area, despite growing resistance from local citizens.

In these three months that I have been there, I have seen them, say that a month and a half... normally, it's two to four shrimp boats and so they stay in the bay for three or four days at most, says the biologist and founder of Kahal Bajasur, an environmental education project.

Although the presence of these vessels has a longer history, complaints took place in the last quarter of 2022 against these vessels, who are accused of trawling, a technique that touches the seabed with nets, whose effects are considered pernicious to the ecosystem by local environmentalists.

Causa Natura Journalism had access to a complaint filed with the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) on December 5 by citizens who have preferred to remain anonymous.

It points to the shrimp boats Nelly, Norma Patricia and Maros X from Mazatlán as trawlers that put various species in the bay at risk.

They have already been reported for fishing for hawksbill turtles and juvenile fish, and they are affecting our seabed, having irreversible consequences for key species such as sardines, rooster fish and weevils, the complaint reads.

Environmental advisor Mariel Tejeda reports that trawling carried out in the bay and around Cerralvo Island damages the environment and affects, in turn, coastal fishermen and service providers in the area; at the same time, she accuses these ships of leaking hydrocarbons.

So they are killing hawksbill turtles that have been documented, reefs that are listed in Semarnat regulations 059, protected species, so they have a large list of illegal ones, Tejeda says.

The environmental advisor argues that the call for these ships to withdraw from the area is based on article 33 of the regulations of the Fisheries Act.

It reads: “The use of trawls in bays and estuaries is prohibited, except in those cases that are expressly authorized by the Secretariat after hearing the opinion of the National Fisheries Institute. This prohibition shall be stated in the concession, permit or authorization granted by the Secretariat.”

A request for information submitted by Conapesca to this media outlet points out that La Ventana Bay is an established bay, however, it is not considered a bay under the NOM-002-SAGARPA/PESC-2013 standard, which orders the use of shrimp species in waters under federal jurisdiction of Mexico.

Within a list of permits in force as of August 29, only the vessel Nelly, owned by the company Pesca Asociada S.A. De C.V. located in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, was identified.

This media searched for the company's version, however, as of press time, no response has been received as of press time.

Trawl fishing

When you touch the sea floor with the nets, the trawl technique collects the marine fauna it encounters in its path, explained Alejandro Olivera, representative in Mexico of the Center for Biological Diversity.

“It's very destructive, why? , because it is not selective, it grabs all the organisms that are found and although there are mechanisms to let species such as turtles and fish escape, because not all of them can, not all of them escape and because of organisms that do not move, they get stuck there”, she explains.

One of the indicators that experts have used to measure the impact of trawling is the ratio of shrimp capture and the accompanying fauna that remains in the same nets.

Research conducted in the Gulf of California by the Center for Biological Research of Northwest S.C., included in the report “Effects of Trawling in the Gulf of California”, maintains that in the 2004 to 2005 season there was a ratio of 1 kilogram of shrimp caught for every 9.7 kg of other species caught by by-catch.

To capture a kilo of shrimp, you're affecting practically 10 kilos of other species, it's very inefficient, it's as if you're going to harvest apples in an orchard and for that you have to even uproot trees, birds and squirrels, Olivera says.

According to the study, this high ratio indicates that fishing exists in very coastal areas, where there are higher concentrations of fish, crustaceans and mollusks.

However, the study emphasizes that although shrimp intensity has increased in the second half of the last century, this ratio of shrimp catch and kilos of by-catch has not increased since 1978, so the indicator is unreliable for determining the impact of trawling on fauna that lives on the marine floor.

A state phenomenon

La Ventana isn't the only bay in Baja California Sur where there's trawling. Alberto Guillén, Operational Director of the Network of Citizen Observers (ROC), points out that in La Paz Bay this technique is used both by shrimp boats and by smaller boats known as “changueros”, which adapt their fishing gear to trawl the seabed.

The Network, among other things, carries out surveillance activities for the protection and conservation of the marine resources of La Paz Bay.

The main thing is that the capture of shrimp is prohibited in the Bay of La Paz, however, many ships sneak in, evading radars, because they have radar on board to monitor them from Mazatlán, Guillén said, referring to the Satellite Vessel Monitoring system that high altitude vessels must normally carry.

On October 30, 2002, a notice was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation regarding the geographical delimitation of La Paz Bay and the prohibition of the use of trawls within it.

The notice designates the National Fisheries Commission (Conapesca) as the institution responsible for ensuring compliance with these regulations. However, Guillén does not rule out that the fishing carried out in the bay takes place under some kind of cloak of impunity.

“Either there is some kind of collusion between inspectors; or they feel protected by some authority in La Paz who give them permission, let's say; or they feel protected to be able to carry out the trawl for a night or two or whatever they can,” he explained.

The chief operating officer commented that it is a problem that has occurred since they began to carry out monitoring in the area in 2009, to the extent that it was one of the reasons why ROC was created.

“Every shrimp season, you will find between one and five ships that enter La Paz Bay periodically. Normally, their check-in times range from 11 at night to 4 a.m. In other words, they do everything during the night just to pass the coast, they drag, clean and in the morning they stay anchored as if they had spent the night there or they retire to anchor somewhere else, where trawling is allowed,” Guillén said.

ROC captain José Luis Ceseña, who manages the initiative's surveillance vessels, says that shrimp boats can remove 500 kilos in one night.

A permit for BCS

According to a request for information from the Causa Natura journalism unit, there is only one commercial trawling permit for shrimp boats from Baja California Sur, granted for five years to the 200-mile II vessel on June 9, 2021.

An analysis of the Natural Cause Data Unit based on Satellite Vessel Monitoring data (VMS records), permits and arrival notices, which must normally carry high-altitude vessels, reveals that there were 43 trawling vessels from states other than Baja California Sur that possibly fished in that entity in 2020.

As these are federal permits, boats from other entities are not prevented from going to the waters of Baja California Sur in search of shrimp.

The data suggest that there were 6,252 possible fishing spots carried out by shrimp boats in 2020, understood this way based on the recording of satellite signals that reflect a speed, depth and position that suggests that they are fishing.

A year later, in 2021, the number of vessels grew by 72.1%, reaching 74 foreign vessels off the coast of Baja California Sur, and potential fishing spots increased 54.19% to 9,640.

It is worth saying that in 2021 at least 57 of the 74 boats came from Mazatlán, or 77%.

More vigilance

A request from the organization Empty The Tanks on the Change.org platform asks for the attention of Profepa and Conapesca on shrimp boats that have fished in La Ventana, Punta Arenas and Boca del Álamo. Since October, it has garnered 16,847 signatures.

Tejeda commented that it is intended to create a participatory monitoring committee against not only trawling, but illegal coastal fishing that occurs at night.

Catching a ship trawling at night is difficult because of the technology they operate with, explained Guillén from ROC.

“You have to be very strategic because these ships have radar, so as soon as they detect a panga that goes towards them during the early morning, what they do is lift immediately and they can leave much faster than we sail,” he explained.

However, citizen inspection and surveillance efforts cover all types of poaching.

Captain Máximo Valentín Pérez said that they routinely go out at night to search for poachers in the Bay of La Paz. Above all, they focus on 'pistoleo', a technique with lamps where “schools (groups) of fish shine and don't move, and there (divers) they are just grabbing them”.

These illegal fishermen catch restricted species such as parakeets, goats and snappers, while “there are other species that have their seasons when you can work them, but these gentlemen don't respect them”.

Authority is needed

Ceseña said that, both for actions against these coastal fishermen or trawling, ROC actions are limited to deterrence, since the support of the Semar and Conapesca authorities is needed to draw up records or make arrests. In 13 years they have managed to stop 12 pangas.

Although surveillance at sea is a key tool, Olivera argues that automated systems could make it more efficient to control trawling in restricted areas.

The perfect system, as it works in the United States, is like photomults... If they detect a boat entering five meters into a prohibited area, the Coast Guard will not arrive. The fine will arrive at the house where you have registered the boat for thousands of dollars for having committed that crime. And if you don't pay, they can lose the boat and their permit, Olivera said.

Meanwhile, citizens demand the attention of the authorities to attend to what is happening at sea.

This is the case of Tejeda, who for now is focusing on establishing a forum for dialogue with fishing authorities “to let them know all the disagreements and illegalities that they are allowing industrial ships in Mazatlán”.

She has joined fishing cooperatives in the area to request a meeting with the municipal president of La Paz, Milena Quiroga, and the governor of Baja California Sur, Víctor Manuel Castro Cosío, while waiting for a response from federal institutions such as Profepa and Conapesca.

The environmental advisor hopes that the dialogue will promote legal changes that protect the bay. Although Cerralvo Island is part of the Gulf of California Islands Flora and Fauna Protection Area, there is interest in expanding protection to the marine part of the bay.

The shrimp boats seen in the last quarter did not return to La Ventana Bay in January, but at any time they could return without an agreement with the companies or the intervention of the authorities.

What we are looking for is for it to be protected as a refuge and hopefully it will be declared as a Protected Natural Area so that it has greater protection, but well, as you know that depends more on community acceptance, Tejeda said.

* A request for information submitted by Conapesca to this media after the publication of this report points out that La Ventana Bay is an established bay, however, it is not considered a bay under the NOM-002-SAGARPA/PESC-2013 standard, which orders the use of shrimp species in waters under the federal jurisdiction of Mexico. This was added to the original text of the report.