For more than a decade, the Mexican Confederation of Fisheries and Aquaculture Cooperatives (Conmecoop) has been promoting sustainability through fishing shelters, community monitoring committees and alliances with institutions. Its strength is not only in the numbers - more than 35 thousand integrated fishermen - but also in its capacity to generate public policies from the territory.
2025 is the International Year of Cooperatives, according to the United Nations (UN). Conmecoop brings together around 600 fishing cooperatives with a presence in 15 states of the country that work with knowledge of the sea, commitment to ecosystems and a vision that puts the common good first.
In an interview with Causa Natura Media, José Luis Carrillo, president of this group of cooperatives, said that for 11 years they have been working for marine ecosystems and the labor dignity of fishermen.
“We have been persistent and that's how we managed to get government authorities to listen to us,” Carrillo said.
Conmecoop has been working for conservation for a decade. Source: Itzel Chan.
Conmecoop's main commitment is to strengthen the issue of responsible fishing and, for this reason, they actively participate in the state councils and Advisory Committees of the different important fisheries in the country.
They are currently part of the National Council for Fisheries and Aquaculture and the National Council for Protected Natural Areas. There, they participate in consultation and advisory forums to set conservation and welfare goals for people who depend on fishing and who live in conservation areas.
Organization is the basis of strength
Getting to these spaces took time and from the beginning they intended to organize themselves as fishermen. Their way of working is governed by the General Law on Cooperative Societies, so they have internal regulations and constituent bases. Council representatives are elected through meetings for a period of 1 to 5 years.
What they gain by being in Conmecoop is above all unity, because by signing petitions by 35,000 fishermen, they are more likely to be taken into account by government authorities.
Carrillo highlighted the importance of the surveillance they carry out in fishing communities, a voluntary work that stems from the desire to take care of the seas and their resources.
“In this organization, we have the most important network of fishing refuge areas in the country in the Baja California Peninsula and it is one of the main achievements, because it is an efficient model of conservation. We have also built inspection and community surveillance committees. With all the work we do, I confirm that the figure par excellence is the cooperative, because there is no worker-employer relationship, and this allows us to have a sense of more responsibility and ownership,” said Carrillo, who lives in Yucatán.
From cooperatives, fishermen organize themselves to watch on the high seas. Source: Celestún Fishing Refuge.
Knowledge of the territory, a great opportunity
Being in the territory, one hundred percent involved in fishing, is a key factor for the growth of this network of cooperatives that have an interest in conservation.
For example, in Yucatán, they are members of the committee that will monitor the Strategic Project for the Recovery of the Grouper Fishery in the Yucatan Peninsula, and will be responsible for implementing the necessary actions for the care of the species before, during and after its fishing.
“We want governments to return to seeing fishing as a decent activity because we fishermen are an extremely important segment in the country and with great economic and social importance in the 17 coastal states,” he said.
In fishing cooperatives, decisions are made horizontally. Source: Celestún Fishing Refuge.
In the Baja California peninsula, his colleague José Flores Higuera, president of the Conmecoop Supervisory Board and president of the board of directors of the Regional Federation of Cooperative Societies of the “Baja California” Fishing Industry (Fedecoop), is clear that cooperatives are composed of organized fishermen, with a work of brotherhood and social responsibility.
Over time, they have had to be trained to understand legal and regulatory language and thus demand the creation and application of national laws.
“Now, for example, we are working on the rules that govern different species of catches such as octopus, lobster, shrimp and, precisely, we are making proposals for studies and analyses to determine the timing, restrictions and capture of the different species,” said Flores.
The organization is autonomous
Without financial support from federal and state governments, Conmecoop operates on the basis of the same contributions that federations make. Flores confirmed that the end-to-end purpose in Mexican territory is the same: to protect the seas.
“Nobody else can take better care of themselves than the fisherman because we are talking about our source of work. We observed that much of what we do stems precisely from the fisherman's interest in conserving and that's how fishing shelters emerged,” he said.
According to the civil organization Community and Biodiversity, A.C. (COBI), fishing shelters are a method of conservation that consists of improving the sustainability of various artisanal fisheries and are a delimited area where you cannot fish for five years.
They are designed with the target species and their behavior in mind. If a fish travels three kilometers in a day, the shelter must cover at least nine kilometers. These measures ensure that species have a safe space to reproduce and grow.
Flores commented that they work just to ensure sustainability in fishing and, at the same time, for food security in the country. They encourage respect for restrictions, measurements of the weight and size of the species, and that environmentally friendly fishing gear such as piola and twine are used.
“Everything we do is to keep our seas producing what we catch. We want our fishing areas to be healthy and healthy, to continue to generate biomass and on which food security depends,” he added.
* This article was written by Itzel Chan, who covers coastal communities thanks to the support of the Report for the World program .
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