Empowering Fishing Communities in the MAR Reef

Moving to the south, we find ourselves in the Bay Islands National Marine Park, formed by three islands, Roatán, Guanaja and Utila. This Park has a very important function in the protection of the coral reefs ecosystems of the Mesoamerican Reef (MAR).

In Honduras, there is little information on fish spawning aggregation (FSA) sites and their fisheries, despite their ecological and economic importance. That is why the NGO Bay Islands Conservation Association-Roatan (BICA-Roatan) is working on acquiring information through the monitoring of the FSA. Through your support we were able to provide funding to help them develop a project called “Working with island communities to improve spawning sites in the Bay Islands”

The goal of this project is to develop a participatory FSA monitoring process that promotes protection and sustainable fishing. Specifically, it seeks to work with the fishing communities of the Bay Islands to generate information that improves the management of these sites. It also focuses on raising awareness in the communities to protect these sites and carry out sustainable fishing practices that will help secure the future of fisheries.

The objectives of this phase are:

• Identify possible fish spawning aggregation through the traditional knowledge of artisanal fishermen in the three islands.
• Quantitatively characterize the status of the Bay Islands fish spawning aggregation fisheries.
• Build capacities and knowledge in the three chapters of BICA (Utila, Roatan and Guanaja) and artisanal fishers to improve the management of fish spawning aggregations and their associated fisheries.
• To sensitize the island population about the importance of protecting the fish spawning aggregation sites in the Bay Islands National Marine Park.

Involving the communities in the process and sharing the knowledge and importance of the FSA will only help them get empowered and on board with protecting the sites.

All of this has been possible because of the help you have provided, for this we are more than grateful. We´ll keep you posted on the results achieved with this project.

Thank you for your support

The MAR Fund Team.