14 Dec Punta Allen, Mexico
View the complete CCRN’s Punta Allen Community Story as a PDF
Juan Carlos Seijo and Maren Headley
Key Messages
- Through a combination of a community-based co-management and territorial user rights, the Vigía Chico Cooperative in Punta Allen has had great success in supporting resource conservation and management, and providing a stable livelihood for fishers and their community, in part through fishery harvest strategies used by small-scale fishers to help maintain stable profits.
- Fishers are building their understanding of the environmental and biological factors which affect the abundance, spatial availability of the spiny lobster resource and fishery profitability, and are exchanging knowledge about the possible effects of climate change and measures that can be taken by the community for adaptation and resilience.
Community profile
The Punta Allen community is located at the tip of a narrow peninsula, and is estimated to be less than one meter above sea level, with a population of around 600 persons. The major economic activities are the spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) fishery and eco-tourism. The Vigía Chico Cooperative runs this fishery, which operates in Ascensión Bay, located in the Sian Ka’an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve(3,4,5,6).
The Bay covers an area of 850 km2 and includes a variety of habitats such as mangroves, corals, sponges, seagrass and macro-algae. For fishing and management purposes, the Bay has been divided up by the fishers into individual fishing grounds, locally known as ‘campos’, numbering 115(4) (Figure 1).
Figure 1: A-Boundaries of Sian Ka’an Reserve (Source: From R. Borges, O. Guzman and K.L. Cooper in Orensanz and Seijo, 2013); B-Ascensión Bay and the individual fishing areas known as “campos” (Source: Orensanz and Seijo, 2013).
In each ‘campo’, fishers deploy artificial shelters, from which spiny lobsters are harvested, by free diving using a small hand held net, which allows females with eggs and undersized individuals to be replaced (Figure 2 & 3). There are 41 ‘campo’ owners, and each owner has exclusive fishing rights within their fishing ground. These rights are supported by internal working rules of the cooperative and respected amongst the fishers. The individual fishing grounds where artificial shelters have been introduced are located in 25 major fishing areas, which are characterised by different habitat and bottom types, and environmental parameters such as salinity and temperature.
Figure 2: Handheld net used to capture spiny lobsters (Photo Credit: Maren Headley).
The fishers have many incentives for this co-management approach, including high lobster catches, high prices, and the cohesive group structure of the cooperative. Co-management has helped the fishery to develop in a sustainable manner such that in 2012, it received Marine Stewardship Council Certification. Most of the rules and regulations are set by the fishers themselves. Although the government has set regulations, they support the co-management approach and there is good cooperation between the government and the fishers.
Figure 3: recently constructed artificial shelters on the beach (Photo Credit: Maren Headley)
Conservation and livelihood challenges
Lobster stocks are a valuable resource to many fishing communities worldwide, and daily changes in catch rates and profits make it difficult for fishers to make the best decisions throughout the fishing season. Factors which can affect the abundance of the spiny lobster include habitat quality, reproduction, and environmental conditions such as marine currents, hurricanes and climate change. In addition to the complexity of the fishery, the spiny lobster has a five-stage life cycle consisting of (i) adults; (ii) eggs; (iii) larvae; (iv) post-larvae and (v) juveniles, with each stage occupying different habitats(2). Larvae develop over an estimated period of six to eight months in the ocean, drifting with the currents and forming connections among wider Caribbean spiny lobster populations. Regions with populations which produce their own larvae (sources), and others which receive more larvae than they produce (sinks) have been identified(1).
In many cases, these uncertainties lead to resource over-harvesting. These types of populations are known as meta-populations and require resource management at the local, national and international levels. It is therefore important that fishers and coastal communities have a good understanding of these factors.
Community initiatives
Being situated in a Biosphere Reserve, the Vigía Chico Cooperative has a long history of learning about their local ecosystem and engaging in conservation initiatives, through partnerships with research institutions and universities such as the University of Marista-Mérida. This has helped the community to build knowledge about:
- factors affecting the productivity and profitability of the fishery and its management implications;
- environmental and biological factors which affect the abundance of the spiny lobster resource;
- possible effects of climate change on the community and fishery, and measures that can be undertaken for adaptation and resilience; and
- relationships among catches of spiny lobster, density of artificial shelters, profitability and fishing area.
Figure 4: Twenty five (25) spiny lobster fishing areas in Ascension Bay.
Further studies will help the fishers understand the relationship among catches of spiny lobster, density of artificial shelters and profitability in the various fishing areas, and how they can adapt to varying resource abundance and profitability throughout the fishing seasons.
Practical Outcomes
Research partnerships have led to an understanding in the fishing community of seasonal and spatial differences in the catches and profitability within the fishing areas. These differences were attributed to the following factors: i) how the lobster is distributed, over space and time, across the Bay, and how its abundance changes; ii) the distance of the fishing area from the port and its location in relation to the mouth of the bay; iii) the density of artificial shelters; and iv) the fishing strategies, such as the choice of fishing intensity (number of artificial shelters harvested per trip) and trip frequency, according to resource abundance, to maintain stable profits throughout the season.
In terms of the state of the fishery itself, transparent and strong leadership has resulted in a unified effort to conserve the spiny lobsters and ensure a sustainable fishery. The rights-based system has eliminated the race to fish since each fisher has exclusive access to lobsters in their fishing ground. This has also allowed fishers to develop a unique harvesting method highly suitable to the area and the resource.
Another key outcome is in terms of social capital. There is a strong sense of community cooperation, with fishers working together for the well-being of each other, particularly in times when fishing areas are affected by heavy rainfall which results in lobster migration away from these areas. In these instances, fishers with fishing grounds in affected areas are invited to form a partnership with other fishing teams. Self-monitoring and self-policing within their community has been quite successful. This stems from an increased sense of fishing ground ownership, as well as the influence of cultural heritage since the majority of the fishers are third generation, community founding members with strong family ties.
References
- Kough, A.S., Paris, C.B. and Butler IV, M.J. (2013). ‘Larval Connectivity and the International Management of Fisheries’. PLoS ONE 8(6): e64970. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0064970
- Lipcius, R.N. and Eggleston, D.B. (2000). ‘Ecology and Fishery Biology of Spiny Lobsters’. In: B.F. Phillips and J. Kittaka (eds.), Spiny Lobsters: Fisheries and Culture, Second Edition, pp. 1–41. Oxford, UK: Fishing News Book-Blackwell. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470698808.ch
- Miller, D.L. (1989). ‘The evolution of Mexico’s Caribbean spiny lobster fishery’. In: F. Berkes (ed.), Common property resources: ecology and community-based sustainable development, pp. 185–198. London, UK: Belhaven Press.
- Orensanz, J.M. and Seijo, J.C. (2013). Rights-based management in Latin American fisheries. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 582. Rome, Italy: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i3418e.pdf
- Seijo, J.C. (1993). ‘Individual Transferable Grounds in a Community Managed Artisanal Fishery’. Marine Resource Economics 8: 78–81.
- Sosa-Cordero, E., Liceaga-Correa, M.A. and Seijo, J.C. (2008). The Punta Allen lobster fishery: current status and recent trends. In: R. Townsend, R. Shotton and H. Uchida (eds.), Case studies in fisheries self-governance, pp. 149–162. FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 504. Rome, Italy: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Available at: http://www.fao.org/3/a1497e/a1497e14.pdf
Acknowledgements
We appreciate the kind involvement and generosity of the Punta Allen community, and its spiny lobster fishing cooperative. Community fishers have been a source of learning and encouragement by sharing fishery knowledge and community wisdom. We thank Dr. Anthony Charles for editing of this manuscript.
