Two Mexican Towns Try to Save Local Fisheries by Banning Fishing Andrew Breiner - ThinkProgress
go to original August 16, 2013

La Reserva Marina de Cabo Pulmo (with subtitles) (Andrea Monge)

The 21st century hasn’t been kind to fish. While overfishing was largely halted in U.S. waters thanks to a 2006 fishery law, we’re a long way from repopulating already-depleted species, and most nations don’t have legally-mandated fishery management.

... In an article on the decline of fisheries in the Sea of Cortez off of Mexico, Harper’s Magazine’s Erik Vance describes the way fishing has moved straight down the food chain after depopulating species after species. Trawlers scoop up hundreds of pounds of “bycatch” fish along with the shrimp they’re after, the often-unlicensed “pangas” then catch the rest, and divers go ever-deeper to find the remaining callao mussels.

But two towns on Mexico’s Gulf of California are doing more than just limiting commercial fishing — they’re banning it. Cabo Pulmo, on the Southern Tip of the Baja Peninsula, worked with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography to close their waters off entirely from fishing in 1995. The town counted on its coral reef and replenished ocean life to draw tourists that would make up for lost fishing revenue and it seems to have worked.

... Loreto, 150 miles away, tried a similar ban on commercial fishing, while allowing sport fishing, which, when well-regulated, is much less of a harm to fish populations. They’ve seen increases in tourism, while maintaining a steady level of biomass. Even commercial fishers in nearby communities get improved catches from replenished stocks of fish leaving the protected zones.

Read the rest at ThinkProgress

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