Empowering Fishing Communities in the MAR Reef

After fifteen months of efforts and hard work, three fishing communities of La Graciosa Bay and one from Puerto Barrios, Izabal, and the National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP; Spanish acronym) have reached the point of signing the co-management agreement for three fisheries recovery sites and a co-management area.

If everything goes well, this will be the first agreement of its kind in Guatemala, and will open the door for other many fishing communities that are interested in these kind of initiatives, but were pending to see how the La Graciosa project turned out.

The most valuable and rich outcome from this process has been the consisting interest from the fishing communities. They have never stopped fighting to implement the fisheries recovery sites, and they stopped fishing inside of these areas even when they didn't have any official tool to support them, as the agreement.

At least two more fishing communities in Guatemala are requesting support to begin their own co-management proposal, as they are clear that the fishing resources are decreasing, and the only way to preserve them is to get involved in its management.

We are very grateful for your support and we need more of it to consolidate more successful initiatives like this one!