Fishermen in Boca del Álamo, Baja California Sur, have been suffering for seven years from the overexploitation of fishing resources by industrial fishing and the use of intensive fishing gear by legal and poaching coastal fishermen, such as nets, traps and pistoling.
“For example, before, fishermen had daily catches of cochito, it didn't run out and the sizes didn't decrease. Then the trappers came in and the fishery disappeared for almost three years. The remaining species were very small because they were the ones that survived the massacre they were carrying out,” says Andrés Lucero, a native of Boca del Álamo.
In their quest to protect commercially important species without banning fishing, in 2019 they designed and implemented a Fishing Refuge Zone. This is awaiting a formal appointment, but the presence of high-impact fishing gears has already diminished and commercial fish stocks have recovered.
A shelter based on community agreements
“I'm a fisherman and then a fishing engineer,” Lucero replies. Since childhood, he used to go to the beach to welcome his father, grandparents and uncles after his fishing tasks, and at the age of 12 he joined them.
Fishing was his destination, however, he had the opportunity to leave the community to study Fisheries Engineering at the Autonomous University of Baja California Sur in La Paz. There he learned about fishery management tools to regulate, control and conserve fisheries in order to ensure their long-term sustainability.
With that knowledge and with the concerns of the fishermen of the Pescadores del Tezal and Boca del Álamo cooperatives, they identified that fishing shelters were the tool that best suits the needs of the community. These are areas delimited in bodies of water where fishing is restricted or prohibited to protect and promote the reproduction and growth of marine species.
After the 21 fishermen in the cooperatives established some basic agreements, they proceeded to socialize the proposal with the community and with commercial and sport fishermen from other communities with whom they share the sea.
During that time, with the support of the Legacy Works Group organization, they held meetings with small groups of people to explain to them about the tool, answer questions and integrate their ideas into the proposal.
“It was very difficult for us at the beginning because there was a lot of misinformation on the subject because the examples that existed about fishing refuge areas were total, without fishing, and we didn't want that. And they were also afraid because they thought it was a Protected Natural Area, but they managed to understand that it wasn't the same thing. Socialization was the thing that took us the longest, it was more than three years,” Lucero points out.
The advantage of shelters is that the community establishes temporality. If within that period it does not work, it is not renewed or if something does not work, it can be improved in the next renovation, unlike a Protected Natural Area that involves a permanent declaration.
“That's what gives us the security that we're not going to lose our right to the sea,” Lucero says.
Cooperation for implementation
They agreed to a partial shelter where only fishing with a piola and hook would be allowed, excluding any other type of fishing gear, and permanently in the polygon. While shallow sport fishing can be done throughout the area.
“Fishing shelters have many versions, but we adapt them in agreement with the community and fishing cooperatives. We determined that we wanted a refuge area where, contrary to prohibiting fishing, it would regulate it for only piola and hook as was done before, because we knew that with that you can recover fishing. The shelter is only a tool to protect and remove those other fishing gears that we knew were collapsing the fishery,” says Lucero.
Source: Proposal for a fishing refuge in Boca del Álamo.
The refuge area they defined is approximately 18 kilometers long by six kilometers wide and is divided into three polygons. In the Huerta Vieja industrial estate you can only fish on the shore of the beach because it is an area for reproduction and breeding of species, while in the rest you can fish with a piola and a hook.
Although they have not yet received the formal appointment as a fishing refuge —which they hope will be in October 2025—, the community already implements it and does not allow industrial boats or fishing gear other than the piola and the hook to enter.
The previous socialization that existed for its establishment has helped to get the community involved in the implementation, mainly in surveillance.
“Communities are a surveillance network that we have all along the coast... Anything they see that's not fishing with a hook or that's suspicious, they let us know, we call the authority or we're going to talk,” Lucero says.
The reaction they have had from people who violate the community agreement has been that they no longer return and go fishing with nets elsewhere or return with a rod and hook.
To strengthen surveillance in the area and address emergency situations in the shelter, fishing cooperatives donated a boat that, through an agreement with the Fund for the Protection of Marine Resources (Fonmar), a trust of the government of the state of Baja California Sur, is in the process of being equipped.
Anticipated results
A study of the current state of fisheries in the area carried out in 2022 was one of the requirements for the application for the registration of the refuge.
The results showed that fish populations and sizes had declined due to large volumes of catch by industrial ships and the use of fishing gear such as nets, traps and harpoons.
Once the refuge has been formally declared, they will have to submit underwater and fishing monitoring results to evaluate the tool's performance, however, they already notice the results.
“The mountains, horse mackerel, snappers and cochitos had not entered the area for eight years, and as we avoided those fishing gears, these species returned. Currently, we already have more species in our rock fields. We noticed in less than three years that the species and the ecosystem had recovered, in fact, the capture volumes have now normalized and we have recovered the sizes and volumes,” says Lucero.
By implementing this sustainable fishing management, anglers have been able to connect with more selective markets that pay them better prices for their catches with a pick and hook than when using other fishing gear.
Once the refuge is formally established, Lucero says, they want to incorporate a fisheries improvement project (FIP) to give even greater added value to their catches and access markets that value their efforts to have sustainable production.
The experience and results obtained with the shelter, even without the official appointment of the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca), keeps the community optimistic and eager to continue towards increasingly sustainable productions.
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