In the area known as La Tintorera within the Archipiélago de Espíritu Santo National Park, a 100-meter network remained submerged for years as a trap for marine fauna. Its extraction on August 21 brought back to the collective eye one of the problems that persist in the Bay of La Paz: “ghost networks”.
In the absence of sufficient official resources, citizen groups such as Mar Libre, Ecosystems and Conservation (ECO) and the Network of Citizen Observers (ROC) have taken a central role in the detection and removal of these abandoned networks at sea, combining voluntary work, technical protocols and collaboration with authorities.
Ghost networks are difficult to locate and are not always distinguishable from networks in use. Alberto Guillén, chief operating officer of ROC, explained that sometimes they are mobilized to sites where the reports turn out to be of fishing gear in use.
The key, he said, is to recognize signs of abandonment such as incrustations, remains of dead fauna, absence of buoys or drums. Even so, he admitted that poaching could be behind many ghost nets: “A large part of the abandoned nets are related to illegal fishing (...) even the fact that nets have been abandoned, it is quite possible that it is because some illegal fishing group was combated.”
The fact that they are abandoned does not limit the fact that these nets continue to catch fish and marine fauna. What was found by the civil organization Mar Libre in its monthly cleaning shows the seriousness of the problem. Pablo Ahuja, founder of the collective, said that one of the most significant moments was “during a monthly cleaning six years ago in the Bay of La Paz, in the Comitán area, we found a net with a baby of a dolphin. Then we released the dolphin and took the net out of the sea (...) it was very exciting for the volunteers.”
Not every scene has a positive outcome. Just eight months ago, on El Saltito beach, Mar Libre found a monofilament net with dead animals, including a turtle and a sea lion.
“The biggest problem is when they are ghost nets (...) there will always be parts that are a little suspended, still functioning as a net, and in those networks fish, sharks, turtles, and marine mammals are trapped that no one will release them and then they die,” said Arturo Ayala Bocos, director of ECO, a civil association that was founded in 2015 as an initiative of a group of biologists that is committed to citizen science and participatory monitoring.
The bodies of a sea lion and a turtle were found on El Saltito beach in September 2024. Photo: Mar Libre.
Network removal
The removal of a ghost network is not a simple operation, it requires boats, specialized divers and economic resources that are rarely available in institutions.
“We are going to spend between 50 and 100 liters of gasoline, depending on the time and distance we are going to travel (...) we have to bring a little water, a little lunch for everyone,” Guillén explained about the ROC tours.
Although such an organization's journeys are focused on environmental monitoring, when they find a network, they must absorb the operating costs.
For its part, ECO works with international protocols learned in workshops at the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and specialists such as Edgardo Ochoa of Conservation International Mexico, representing in the country the organization based in the United States, which is dedicated to promoting ecosystem-based solutions that ensure human well-being and biodiversity.
The methods for extracting a net from the seabed may vary depending on the case, since the dimensions of the network, depth or difficulties such as being trapped by stones or entangled in reefs vary. Arturo explains how they have worked at ECO for the recovery of these networks: “You section, tie some lifting bags (buoys) and mark where you are going to make the cuts (...) then you cut and those lifting bags will send the net to the surface”.
Coordination with authorities is often slow, he regrets.
Necessary but limited authorities
Although collectives usually take the first step, the legal extraction of networks requires institutional presence. ROC, accredited as an environmental monitoring committee, collaborates directly with Profepa: “When we report something to them, reliable work has already been done for many years. They trust the data we pass on to them.”
However, the lack of budget is evident. During the decade between 2015 and 2025, Mexico has experienced a clear change in the budgetary priority dedicated to environmental protection.
Profepa, intended for ecological surveillance, had 1,107 million pesos in 2015, and around 839 million are projected to be around 839 million pesos by 2025, representing a nominal drop of close to 24%. Conanp, responsible for the conservation of protected natural areas, went from having more than 1,185 million in 2015 to just 1.1 million in 2025, which implies that each protected hectare receives an average of only 10.2 pesos a year this year, according to the analysis of the Northwest Civil Society coalition for Environmental Sustainability (NOSSA) in the study Care for What Matters.
“Profepa is not always mobile in water. So let's say we're doing the complete favor: we received the report, verified it, confirmed it and supported the maneuver,” Guillén said.
For Ayala Bocos, the root of the problem is higher up, “the federal government doesn't give these commissions enough budget to do it (...) those who have to take care of that, because it's the community, society through civil associations, volunteer groups (...) which, let's see, it's not that they don't want those from Conanp or Profepa but they have nothing to do with”.
From reaction to prevention
The big question that remains open is how to prevent these traps from reaching the sea. Arturo Ayala Bocos agrees that the solution cannot be limited to reacting every time a network appears, but must be oriented towards a preventive model.
According to the director of ECO, this change requires three central axes: regulation, surveillance and education. “To avoid and prevent, the reality of things is that you would have to have a good regulation and surveillance program (...) and most important of all is to work hard to raise awareness with fishermen,” he said.
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