{"id":15020,"date":"2025-05-06T06:20:48","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T06:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15020"},"modified":"2025-05-06T06:20:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T06:20:48","slug":"how-mexicos-fishing-refuges-are-fighting-back-against-poaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=15020","title":{"rendered":"How Mexico\u2019s Fishing Refuges Are Fighting Back Against Poaching"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

It has been<\/span> two hours since the divers left the coast behind. As they reach their designated GPS points in the Gulf of Mexico, their boats\u2019 engines go from roaring to whispering. In pairs, they enter the Celest\u00fan Fishing Refuge Zone, one of the largest in Mexico. Their ritual is absolute: put on fins, adjust vests and hoses, clean visors, and load oxygen tanks and weights. For the next few minutes, their lives depend on having carefully prepared their dives to this place of hope.<\/p>\n

They are here seeking to restore fisheries in decline or on the verge of collapse. This refuge, a no-catch zone established in 2019<\/a>, covers 324 square kilometers and is monitored by the Yucat\u00e1n Coast Submarine Monitoring Community Group, a group of community divers and fishers, who are supported by personnel from the Mexican Institute for Research in Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture (IMIPAS) and the civil association the Community and Biodiversity (COBI). Their methodology mixes local knowledge with scientific rigor.<\/p>\n

The problem they face is a global one: Overfishing and environmental degradation are destroying the biodiversity of the oceans, with many countries lacking the will or resources to combat the problem. In 2024, as sea-surface temperatures broke all-time records, the Worldwide Fund for Nature\u2019s Living Planet<\/em><\/a> report showed that, over the past 50 years, marine populations worldwide have declined in size by 56 percent. Over a third of current marine populations are overfished.<\/p>\n

In Mexico, more than 700 marine species are fished in 83 fisheries, which support 200,000 Mexican families. Analysis of Mexico\u2019s National Fishing Charter<\/a> by IMIPAS indicates that 17 percent of the country\u2019s fisheries are deteriorated, 62 percent are being exploited at their maximum sustainable level, and 15 percent have no information on their state. When the conservation nonprofit Oceana analyzed the same data, it found that 34 percent of Mexico\u2019s fisheries are in “poor condition,\u201d says to Esteban Garc\u00eda Pe\u00f1a, Oceana\u2019s coordinator of research and public policy.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that, under Mexican law, no one is obligated to look after the health of the country\u2019s fisheries; Mexico\u2019s General Fisheries Law doesn\u2019t obligate the government to take on this responsibility. Oceana has petitioned to change this, and in the face of legislative disinterest, even filed an injunction in 2021 against the Congress of the Union, alleging violations of human rights, such as access to a healthy environment and food. This inspired a proposal to revive Mexico\u2019s deteriorated fishing zones, only for it not to be analyzed or approved by Congress, and the project was frozen.<\/p>\n

\n
\n