Empowering Fishing Communities in the MAR Reef

The first initiative of fisheries recovery sites in the Río Sarstún Multiple Use Area in Guatemala has had a very good acceptance from the fishers, authorities and private sector. It also has reached important previous results.

A research protocol to establish the baseline of the proposed fisheries recovery sites was designed and will shortly be implemented by FUNDAECO (the NGO that co-administrates the protected area) jointly with the fishers and authorities. 

The NGO Cuerpos de Conservación de Omoa, co-adminsitrator of the Cuyamel - Omoa National Park, has done an extraordinary diagnosis on the status of the fisheries resources within the protected area.  This diagnostic was developed jointly with fishers from several coastal communities: Chachaguala, Muchilena, Villa San Martín, Masca, El Paraíso, among others.  These communities are worried about the decrease of the resources and want to support the fisheries recovery site initiative. 

The staff from the NGO divided the protected area in three main sites: river, lagoon and reef. Then they did monitor each of the sites so that the fishers could notice the relation and linkage among the ecosystems and its respective species.

The results of the monitoring were socialized with the fishers who learned about the importance that each ecosystem has for the different stages of the life cycle of every fish sepcies.  With these results, they all agreed the area to propose as a fisheries recovery site.

We are very excited that they are now preparing the demarcation bouys for the fisheries recovery zones and close to submit the are proposed to the authorities and to begin the legal process to become co-administrators of their own fishing resources.

We will keep you posted about their next promising steps!