Chinchorro Bank. Photo: Conan p.
44% of Protected Natural Areas (ANP) in southeastern Mexico have fishing permits in one of their sub-areas.
The institution responsible for managing these reserves is the National Commission for Protected Natural Areas (Conanp). It has 36 ANP attached to the Regional Directorate of the Yucatan Peninsula and the Mexican Caribbean, of which eleven lack endorsements for fishing, either because they prohibit it within their limits or in their buffer zones; and five do not specify the activity.
Mexico is experiencing a “boom” of declarations of new ANP by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who found 182 ANP when he took over the reins of his administration and has declared that he intends to inherit 43 more to his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum.
The commitment of the fishing sector is to respect those places where fishermen were already fishing and international organizations such as FAO promote programs to guarantee the food security of the fishing communities themselves within ANP.
Far from feeling restricted, fishing within a Marine Protected Area is a privilege for José Ángel Canto, who chairs the Cozumel Cooperative Fisheries Production Society.
“What is the difference between being in a Protected Natural Area and in a cooperative that is not? Well, there is a big difference. First of all, we are privileged to be in these Protected Natural Areas as the only cooperatives that are in each area,” said Canto.
The 48-member cooperative was founded in 1959 and has a concession to fish for lobster in the Bay of the Holy Spirit of the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve and another on the island of Cozumel.
Exclusivity is also a benefit supported by the Caribbean Lobster Fisheries Production Cooperative Society, whose fishing concession is located within the Banco Chinchorro Biosphere Reserve.
“At Banco Chinchorro, the only ones that have the exclusive right to do commercial fishing are three cooperatives that are recognized in the decree creating the reserve, which are Andrés Quintana Roo, fishermen from Banco Chinchorro and Lobsteros de Caribe,” said Jaime Medina, former president of Lobsteros del Caribe, a cooperative founded in January 1992.
For Medina, a veteran fishing leader, it is clear that without the ANP the fishing banks could have run out. On this account, after lengthy negotiations between the authorities and the fishermen, the establishment of the ANP was agreed in 1996.
“We knew the advantages that being a Biosphere Reserve would give us. First of all, it helped us with regard to the cruise ship dock, if it hadn't been for that reason I think Chinchorro would have finished it by now,” Medina said.
“The intention of the owner of the pier was to bring a boat with 400 people a day into Chinchorro. It was going to be two trips. The operating rules of Banco Chinchorro say that the maximum number of visits that the bank can handle is 150 people, but in 5 different activities, you can't fit 150 divers,” Medina added about the protection that the area has under the figure of ANP.
Sustainable Arts
Photo: Cozumel Fishing Cooperative.
In the Bays of Ascension and Espírito Santo, commercial fishing, domestic fishing and recreational fishing are allowed without the use of a net, in accordance with a request for information made by Causa Natura Media.
While in the Biosphere Reserve, Banco Chinchorro has a commercial fishing area that excludes those within the reef lagoon.
Both Medina and Canto explained that for fishermen, caring for natural resources is paramount, since they depend on fishing to survive.
“For us, the privilege is to have the care of natural resources, within these ANP, not so much because it is taken care of by the authority, but by us fishermen,” said Canto.
Cooperatives work with sustainable artisanal fishing gears, which support the sustainability of lobster.
“Although the cooperative is going to be 64 years old, we have established internal controls and agreements for 20 years. Sustainable fishing is based on the release and protection of the natural resource, which in this case is lobster, which is managed alive. It allows that if you as a fisherman fish it and it does not give the official size, which is 13.5 of the tail, or if it is patched or fertilized, because it has eggs or in your case, as we say, naturally pregnant... it is allowed to be released so that this product is not taken out and returned to the sea,” said Canto.
Photo: Government of Mexico.
Medina highlighted that his administration's last contribution as president was fishing for live lobster, rather than just the tail.
“Right now we've been working on the whole lobster for eight seasons. So there is more care in that regard, because now with a ribbon they take it out, they no longer hook it. Then you take out the lobster. If it's soft you return it, if it's patched you return it, if it has eggs it returns them, if it's not the size you return it,” Medina said.
Fishing shelters
In 2012, the declaration of eight fishing refuge areas in Espíritu Santo Bay, which are located within the cooperative's concession, was formalized. The idea is that restrictions on fishing in limited areas result in the repopulation of capture species.
The polygons were installed at the request of the cooperative and the deadline has been extended every five years, effective until 2027. However, the fishermen maintain that the authorities have left them alone in the task of taking care of the shelters.
“There is a double role that must be important for the federal government to take care of these places; first it is a protected natural area and second they contract or sign international agreements where creations and refuge areas are made, but on paper it can withstand everything, but in practice it is not carried out by the federal government,” said Canto.
For his part, Medina questioned the benefit of shelters and pointed out that the Chinchorro Reserve already has core areas where fishing is prohibited.
“In theory, it's pretty. Because if you take a piece where you don't fish, then everything that lives there reproduces, grows and the surplus because it can no longer live there comes out. That was theory, but in practice it was not like that. There are cooperatives that say yes, but I doubt it,” Medina said.
However, in Banco Chinchorro's 2019 fishing shelter declaration, at the request of the cooperatives themselves, it is stated that after monitoring carried out between 2013-2018, the fish biomass in the Pesquero 40 Cañones refuge area is “larger compared to other sites, so it can be considered that they are starting to see results that would benefit local fisheries, since larger fish are being recorded compared to the baseline”.
In addition to efforts to comply with the restrictions and registered areas, there is the surveillance of their resources against poachers.
“There are guidelines that have to be respected, established by the federal government and others cannot enter. However, with the cancer that exists from illegal fishing, if there are people who get into those places, especially protected natural areas, that come from another side. Poachers who want to get involved, that's why we have implemented community surveillance, Conapesca should do that work, it's on paper but now there is no (presence) in the federal sphere of the sea,” lamented Canto, and emphasized budgetary support and surveillance elements.
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