How to resist fishing shelters in Mexico against overfishing

it has been Two hours ago, the divers left the coast. As they reach the designated GPS points in the Gulf of Mexico, their boat engines move from calm to the whisper. In pairs, they enter the Cestún refuge area in hunting, one of the largest in Mexico. Its rituals are absolute: placed on fins, adjust the jackets, hoses, and clean masks, and load oxygen tanks and weights. In the next few minutes, their lives depend carefully to prepare this diving to this place of hope.

Here they seek to restore fish fisheries in a decline or about to collapse. This shelter has created an area of ​​occurrence In 2019It covers 324 kilometers and is monitored by the Yousan Coast Community Group, a group of divers and community, supported by employees from the Mexican Institute for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquache ’Education (IMIPAS) and the Civil Association and Biodiversity (Cobi). Their methodology mixes local knowledge with scientific rigor.

The problem they face is a global problem: it destroys overfishing and environmental degradation is the biological diversity of oceans, as many countries lack the will or resources to combat the problem. In 2024, with the outbreak of sea surface temperatures at all times, the World Fund for Nature Live Planet The report has shown that over the past fifty years, the number of marine population around the world has decreased by 56 percent. More than a third of the current naval population is amplified.

In Mexico, more than 700 sea species are hunting in 83 fisheries, which support 200,000 Mexican families. Mexico analysis National Fishing Charter IMIPAS notes that 17 percent of the country’s fisheries in the country have deteriorated, 62 percent are exploited at the maximum sustainable level, and 15 percent have no information on their mandate. When non -profit Oceana analyzed the same data, I found that 34 per cent of fish fisheries in Mexico are in a bad condition, ”says Esteban García Peña, the Public Research and Policy Coordinator in Usna.

Part of the problem is that, under Mexican law, no one is obligated to sponsor the health of fisheries in the country; Public Fisheries Law in Mexico does not grant the government to hold this responsibility. Uchina submitted a petition to change this, and in the face of legislative lack of attention, even in 2021 against the Union Conference, claiming human rights violations, such as reaching the health and food environment. This inspired a proposal to revive the fishing areas in Mexico, only for not analyzing or approved by Congress, and the project has been frozen.

In 50 years, the world lost 56 percent of its marine population.

Photo: Photo Heritage/Getty Images

Facing this uncertainty, societies took things in their hands. Although the government is not obligated to protect and revive fish fisheries in the country, people can demand this in decentralization areas to preserve and recycle marine ecosystems. Thus, today, there are shelters in Baja California Sur, Quintana Row, and Cambeshi, with a total of more than 2 million hectares and benefit, directly or indirectly, 130 species.

“When the first proposal was made, it seemed crazy,” says Alicia Botut, a researcher at Emibas and head of the Regional Center for Aquaculture and Fisheries in Yokkalatin. “Some people think it closes the sea, but it is not. It works in a sustainable way, with the supervision of society.”

The limits of abundance

On the day before the start of the observation, the Celestún team combines a large Palapa. Jacobo Camal, an expert on the scientific diving of a cup, is reviewing the plan for the next few days. Judgingly gives practical advice, using coconut to show how to measure sea option and seafood.

They talk about the option of the sea because although it is not part of the art of Mexican cooking, fishing has made a lot of profit for this coast. On the Chinese market, these creatures can bring more than $ 150 per board. The noise on echinoderm has prompted harmful practices of the ecosystem and the health of the fishermen, such as diving using a HookahThe temporary diving machine that works on gasoline and burns oxygen below a tube to the divers below the surface. Sometimes, healthy towels stand as a filter for oil, while mint tablets are taken to reduce the taste of gas. In Silina, no one denies the risk of diving with this device. Many people know someone who had an accident or died due to pressure.

Until 2012, this region had an abundance option, but violating its closed seasons brought species to the brink of extinction. Divers began to work deeper and deeper to chase them. The situation has become unable to defend. After that, a group of fishermen requested imipas researchers to help create an area that the sea can have an opportunity to recover.