Two hours ago the coast was behind. Upon reaching the points indicated by the GPS in the Gulf of Mexico, the boats of the boats pass from the rumble to the whisper. In couples, bars and divers enter the fishing area of Celestún, one of the largest in Mexico. The ritual is absolute: put on the fins, adjust the vest and hoses, clean the viewfinder, load the tank and lead, take a table to record the marine landscape. During the next minutes, his life depends on carefully preparing his immersion to this place of hope. They seek to restore fisheries in decline or on the edge of collapsetask that, according to Mexican laws, nobody has an obligation to make.
The fishing refuge areas (ZRP) are tools that the people ask the government to conserve and repopulate fisheries and marine ecosystems. That of Celestún, decreed in 2019covers 324 square kilometers and is the only officer in Yucatan. Last summer, its biomass was studied by the ‘Community Group of Submarine Monitoring of the Coasts of Yucatan’, with support of community bars of Quintana Roo, staff of the Mexican Institute for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Imipas, formerly Inapesca) and the Community and Biodiversity Civil Association (Cobi). His Methodology mix local knowledge with scientific rigor.
The problem they face at the local level is worldwide. The overfishing and environmental degradation end the biodiversity of the oceans. Many countries lack will or resources to restore them. In 2024, while marine surface temperatures broke historical records, the report Living planet showed that, in 50 years, We lost 56% of marine populations; As for current populations, 37.7% are Overweight object.
In Mexico, more than 700 species organized in 83 fishing, which support 200,000 Mexican families, are fish. According to Imipas, the National Fisheries Charter (CNP) indicates that the 17% of fisheries are deteriorated, 62% are used to their maximum sustainable – that is, in the healthy limit of exploitation – and of 15% there is no information about their status. Oceana analyzed the same instrument and identified that “34% of fisheries are in poor condition,” According to the accuracy of Esteban García Peña, research and public policy coordinator of this international organization.
The damage is done, but the General Fisheries Law does not assign the government to recover the populations of exhausted fish. “It is necessary to establish that process of the hand of the fishing sector and without neglecting science,” Nancy Gocher, Director of Incidence in Oceana, points out to Wired in Spanish. The NGO proposed an initiative for the State to assume that work. However, when verifying legislative disinterest – four four of 60 proposals About fishing they have been approved since 2018 – in 2021 he presented a amparo against the Congress of the Union by legislative omission, alleging human rights violations, such as access to a healthy environment and food. After that, then Senator Nancy Sánchez Arredondo joined the elaboration of a Reform project to recover deteriorated fishing resources. Not being analyzed and ruled by Congress, the project was frozen.
Given that uncertainty, communities decide to take care of sites where, as they say, the sea can rest. Today there are shelters in Baja California Sur, Quintana Roo and Campeche, who total more than 2 million hectares and benefit, directly or indirectly, 130 species. “When the first proposal was raised, it seemed crazy,” says Alicia Poot from her office, researcher at the IMIPAS and head of the Regional Center for Aquaculture and Fisheries Research (Criap) of Yucalpetén. “Some believe it is to close the sea, but no. Is to work an area in a sustainable way, with community surveillance. ”
The limits of abundance
One day before starting monitoring, the Celestún team meets under a wide palapa. Jacobo Caamal, Cobi scientific diving expert, reviews the plan of the next few days, although his people have been preparing for action for months. Between jokes, it gives practical advice and uses coconuts to show how to measure cucumbers and sea snails, but its voice sounds severe when it addresses the security issue.
They talk about sea cucumbers because, although it is not part of Mexican cuisine, its fishing brought many profits to this coast. In the Chinese market you pay well, costing more than $ 150 per plate. The uproar by the echinoderm catapulted harmful practices for the ecosystem and for the health of fishermen, such as diving with air compressor or Hookahan improvised machine that sometimes carries sanitary towels as a filter against oil (it serves little) and mint pills to mitigate gasoline flavor (it serves less). In Celestún, nobody denies the risk of diving with that machine. Many know someone who had an accident or who died due to decompression.
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