In the north of the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Gulf of Mexico is intertwined with a strip of mangroves and white sand beaches, fishing has been the economic and cultural support of communities for generations. But in ports such as Celestún, San Felipe and Rio Lagartos, the abundance once offered by the sea has begun to become scarce: key species such as grouper (epinephelus morio), octopus (octopus maya), lobster (panulirus argus) and sea cucumber (holoturoids ) are under pressure from overexploitation and poaching. Faced with the scant vigilance of Mexican authorities, it is women fishermen, mothers of families, merchants and divers who organize to protect these marine spaces.
With their own means, these women carry out rounds of surveillance, document irregularities, deter poachers and collect evidence to file complaints. They do so without pay, without insurance and, often, without even being included in official fishing records. Even so, they have succeeded in reducing illegal fishing and, little by little, they are changing the perception of their role in a sector that has historically been dominated by men.
Its presence in the water not only challenges illegality, but it also highlights the institutional weakness in the area. In a state like Yucatán, which tops the national list of complaints for illegal fishing and where there are only seven official inspectors to monitor more than 370 kilometers of coastline, the work of these women not only fills a gap, but also proposes a new way of taking care of the sea from a collective, technical and community perspective.
Celestún: the cradle of women who care for the sea
In the port of Celestún, there are ten people seated: five men and five women. This is a rare scene in an industry that is often dominated by men. However, they make their way. With binoculars around their necks, notebook in hand and drone, they participate in community surveillance to protect the sea and stop illegal fishing.
Women who protect Yucatan's marine conservation areas have been trained in the use of drones to facilitate surveillance on the high seas. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
In a black, waterproof case they keep their binoculars, their camera, a kit, a solar charger, a tablet, their notebook and a satellite navigator. The latter is the one that points to the polygon of the fishing shelter they patrol.
The Celestún fishing shelter was created for the first time in 2019, as an emergency to protect resources such as sea cucumber, grouper and lobster, which are highly threatened by overexploitation and poaching. In this space, fishing was banned for a period of five years to help marine species recover and, for the first time this year, only artisanal octopus fishing will be allowed.
The design of these shelters is based on the behavior of the species to be protected. For example, if a fish swims up to three kilometers in a day, the shelter must extend at least nine kilometers to ensure that it finds a safe space within its natural range of motion. This creates conditions for their populations to regenerate effectively.
Through their work, women guardians seek to ensure that this protection does not remain only on paper.
Baggage with kit, camera and other supplies for marine surveillance functions. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
Although they are a minority, their contribution to conservation is undeniable. The Secretariat of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture of Yucatán (Sepasy) has an official list of fishermen in the state, which records the names of 12,382 people engaged in fishing. Only 143 are women, representing 1.16%. Most are found in municipalities such as Progreso, Celestún, San Felipe, Hunucmán and Rio Lagartos, all located north of the Yucatecan Peninsula.
Interactive dashboard. Source: Sepasy. Visualization: Ilse Bonilla of Purple Solutions.
The names that are most repeated in the list are: Manuel Jesús, Miguel Ángel, Víctor Manuel, José Luis and Luis Alberto. But here, at the community surveillance assembly in Celestún, those taking the floor are Damaris, Reina, Laura, Rocío, María de la Luz and Esther.
Damaris Chuy, a young, dark-haired woman who stands out for her leadership when it comes to working as a team, remembers that in the last four years her husband has come home with less and less fishing. As a mother of a family, she worries: it is a sign that the species they feed on, or those that they sell for a living, such as groupers and octopuses, are running out.
“In addition, anglers tell us that before they could fish 25 miles out to sea, but now they have to go at least 60 miles,” Chuy adds. There he understood that urgent action needed to be taken. More women in the area joined her feelings.
“We used to think that this was only for men. But we began to get involved in surveillance because we noticed that, when men encountered poachers, the clashes were stronger. So we saw it as a strategy: with us they calm down a little. What we do is try to prevent them from fishing inside the fishing shelter and that they don't catch species that are closed,” explains Reina Dzul, another of the Celestún women who leave the shore to become guardians of their marine territory. 
A part of the Celestún women's team, a key player in coastal surveillance. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
Although it is difficult to regulate fishing in a fishing community, these women know that this is one of the few alternatives they have to conserve the resource. The rules are strict: no tank diving, no sport fishing or trawls.
To carry out the surveillance tasks, Rocío de la Cruz, who has been with the group for almost five years, explains that they are organized from one day to the next, mainly for safety reasons —so as not to alert poachers that the coast will be watched—, but also because they depend on weather conditions and whether there are sufficient resources for fuel.
The group is set up with those who can and have the time, usually five or six people. “We notified each other by message: tomorrow there will be a rondín —as the patrol is known locally—, and everything we see during the day we report (to Conapesca),” says Reina Dzul.
The work they do is voluntary and unpaid. Between them, they distribute the functions for each surveillance route. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
The women involved do not receive state or federal support, but they do receive support from the international organization WildAid, which, through resources and training, works to protect threatened wildlife and marine ecosystems, strengthening the application of regulations in the ocean and the reduction of illegal fishing in marine areas.
On a regular day, the gas tanks are first loaded — in which they invest up to four thousand Mexican pesos (215 dollars) per route — and then the tasks are assigned: one carries the binoculars, another takes pictures with the camera and the drone, someone else writes everything down in the notebook and one more, if the occasion arises, is responsible for talking with the fishermen.
“We didn't arrive suddenly. First we observe from afar. We write down the plates of the boat and see if the boat has a name. If we see something strange, we approach, always taking care of our safety,” Dzul explains. The protocol is clear: if there is a risk, they withdraw.
Women have become the visible face of protecting marine resources. Photo: courtesy Patricio Medrano.
Its presence in the water for five years has yielded results. According to their data, they managed to reduce the number of boats that fish illegally in the shelter from 15 to three or four per month.
The truth is that Yucatán, according to figures provided by the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca) to Mongabay Latam, is among the three states with the highest number of complaints about poaching (345, between 2010 and 2023). In addition, it tops the national list in complaints of illegal commercialization of marine species, with 186 formal reports that represent more than 32% of the total in the country.
Beyond the complaints, according to the same entity, between 2009 and 2024, more than 4579 tons of illegal marine fishing products were withheld in Yucatán, the fifth highest figure in the country, only below Jalisco, Mexico City, Sonora and Sinaloa. In addition, 300 boats, 588 vehicles and more than 7000 fishing gears have been confiscated, and 104 people have been made available to the authorities in connection with poaching.
These data reveal a constant pressure on marine ecosystems and a growing alarm. All the more so considering that the Yucatan coastline is shorter than that of other states, that there are fewer operating vessels and that the institutional capacities to address this problem are limited.
As a result, it is women who are responsible for taking photos that serve as evidence to file reports for poaching every month in the Conapesca Illegal Fishing Reporting System.
When they find poachers, they urge them to leave the area. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
In addition, they patrol every week because neither Conapesca nor the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) carry out surveillance tours, they say.
The reason for this institutional absence is also in the numbers: since 2020, there are only seven people from Conapesca dedicated to monitoring 15 ports and more than 378 kilometers of coastline.
In addition, for 2025, the federal budget allocated for these tasks was 42.7 million Mexican pesos (about 2.3 million dollars), well below the 107.2 million (5.7 million dollars) allocated in 2020, which represents a reduction of more than 60%, according to the response provided by the same state agency. However, Semar assures that it has carried out 135 joint operations with Conapesca since 2023, concentrated in municipalities such as Progreso, Celestún, Rio Lagartos, Dzilam de Bravo and Telchac Puerto.
Another worrying aspect is that illegal fishing does not seem to be on the agenda of the Yucatan Secretariat of Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sepasy). In a request for information made by Mongabay Latam, the entity stated that “the topic of poaching” was not included in the discussions of the Extraordinary Installation Session of the Council for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture of the State of Yucatán or in the First Regular Session, spaces where new routes of action are being built.
Interactive dashboard. Source: Conapesca. Visualization: Ilse Bonilla of Purple Solutions.
In San Felipe and Rio Lagartos, female divers patrol the sea
It's Sunday morning in San Felipe, on the eastern coast of Yucatán. On the Malecón, the Coastal Renaissance Festival is held, promoted by the local government with the objective of “sensitizing the population to the importance of closures, with special emphasis on the prohibition of groupers,” an official statement said.
On one side of the pier, some outdated young people dance, the music plays loud and the garbage from the day before is piling up. A few streets down the road, a group of women prepare in silence.
They are divers who monitor this area of the Yucatan coast. Since 2020, they have received training, certificates and the trust of their communities to help conserve marine resources. While others celebrate, they get ready to patrol the coast.
“We try to be anglers who are more aware of what we do at sea. We try not to extract species that are closed or that do not reach the required size. Beyond monitoring and surveillance, we are dedicated to taking care of our entire marine ecosystem,” says Stacy Acevedo, who has been fishing since she was 17 years old and, after more than a decade, has seen her commitment grow stronger.
Acevedo began accompanying his father at sea and, with the profits from fishing, he paid for his studies. Now, he points out, his conviction is to keep and motivate more people to do the same.
The women of Rio Lagartos and San Felipe meet before dawn to organize patrol rounds. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
In front of the municipalities of San Felipe and Dzilam de Bravo, on December 27, 2024, the “Actam Chuleb” Fishing Refuge was declared in marine waters under federal jurisdiction. There, the group of volunteers that Stacy Acevedo is part of performs an average of four monitoring sessions per month. She and her colleagues remember that at first the community called them crazy, but now they begin to value their actions.
For Jacobo Caamal, the implementer of the Community and Biodiversity (COBI) AC team—a Mexican civil organization founded in 1999 that promotes ocean conservation and the sustainable use of fishery resources—women's participation in the fishing sector must be understood beyond the act of fishing.
“Decreasing a shelter involves aspects such as monitoring, surveillance, education and training so that all the management can be done. Here, in particular, there is a large presence of women and we realize the need to make visible the role they play in the fishing sector. They are an important part of fishing machinery,” he says.
In communities such as San Felipe and Rio Lagartos, COBI promotes technical training processes with women as protagonists. “There are more women monitors than in other ports in the state. Some are divers certified by the PADI agency and others are training as data analysts,” explains Caamal.
Women who carry out surveillance have also become an inspiration for young women in their communities. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
In Rio Lagartos, Jéssica Marfil and Gloria Pereira have been watching the coasts for more than a year. They have faced screams, ridicule and threats, but they also avoid capturing threatened species such as lobster and octopus in closed areas.
Upon returning to the port, there are no medals or applause, just a log full of data and tiredness in the arms.
Jéssica Marfil admits that although they monitor the area of 23.7 square kilometers, they do not have the power to “punish” people. Like their colleagues at Celestún, they are responsible for taking photographs and, if the situation allows it, they point out to the fishermen the reasons why fishing is not allowed in that area. “We only take photos and write down the data, but we don't start arguing because, having the evidence and documentation, we can go and report,” Marfil says.
These women are inspirations for the youngest in their communities and they support a surveillance network that helps to take care of their marine resources.
There are 10 women in Rio Lagartos, Celestún and San Felipe who carry out monitoring to assess levels of conservation offshore. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
Ahmed Burad Méndez, coordinator of WildAid's Marine Program in Mexico, witnesses the work they do: “Women are increasingly seeing an active role in technical aspects and management of fisheries resources. They provide an important perspective in caring for their livelihood: fishing,” he says.
A work that is little recognized, but necessary
From Celestún to El Cuyo, passing through San Felipe, Telchac Puerto and Rio Lagartos, there is a living network of guardians of the sea that every day strives to ensure that their daughters and sons know in the future the species they protect today.
Dr. María Teresa Castillo Burguete, researcher at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav), an institution created in 1961, explains that women's participation in activities related to fishing is marked by a double invisibility: by considering their work as part of daily family life and by dynamics that do not recognize this contribution. “A large part of the functions that women perform are invisible because they are assumed to be 'expected', that they 'help' at home and even in aspects such as the commercialization of fishing,” she says.
Laura González Rivera, general coordinator of the Kanan Kay Alliance —which works from civil society to strengthen community surveillance in Yucatán— agrees: “The integration of women into surveillance and monitoring tasks is the result of a convergence of community, organizational and cultural factors. After their association, there is a gradual but sustained change in the perception of the role of women in fishing and conservation activities”.
In the towns of Rio Lagartos and San Felipe, women build support networks inside and outside the oversight committee. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
During 2024, the Kanan Kay Alliance provided legal and technical training processes for local committees and leaders in fishing refuge areas such as Celestún, Rio Lagartos and Telchac Puerto. In Celestún, 18 women were trained in surveillance and two more in diving.
José Luis Carrillo, president of the Mexican Confederation of Fisheries and Aquaculture Cooperatives (Conmecoop) —a network of 600 fishing cooperatives with a presence in 15 states of the country—assures that women's participation is increasing every day. “There is already more openness and more formats in which women participate. I have seen that they are more involved in monitoring and surveillance and that is important,” he says. According to him, the states where there are more women involved in surveillance issues are Chiapas, Oaxaca and Yucatán.
San Felipe and Rio Lagartos women are constantly being trained on issues of surveillance, monitoring and data. Photo: courtesy of Natalia Gutierrez.
Despite the advances, the challenges remain many: there are weak institutional structures, elusive data, constant risks and a lack of recognition. But in the face of that tide, women are resisting with their own strength. They don't expect guidelines from above, but they chart their own route at sea. Each route, photo taken, license plate annotated and recorded data is another step in coastal conservation.
*This report is part of the series “women in fishing in Latin America” and was produced in partnership with Mongabay Latam.
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