Proposers
Latin American Fisheries Fellowship
Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
Juan Carlos Villasenor-Derbez, jvillasenor@bren.ucsb.edu, +52 1 646-102-0624
Caio Faro, cfaro@bren.ucsb.edu, +1 805 689-9849
Client
Comunidad y Biodiversidad, A.C.
Jorge Torre-Cosio, Executive Director, jtorre@cobi.org.mx, +52 1 622-855-9264
Alvin Suarez, Marine Reserves Manager for the Gulf of California and Marine Reserves Science Responsible, asuarez@cobi.org.mx, +52 1 622-146-5284
The objective of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of TURF-reserves established as collaboration between fishing communities in Mexico and the NGO Comunidad y Biodiversidad (COBI). We aim to understand the degree to which management actions have achieved the goals and objectives – in social, ecological, and economic terms- of each TURF-reserve. By combining this information, we will create a framework that allows COBI to better understand which communities are more suitable to implement successful TURF-reserves. This project will focus more specifically on answering the following questions:
Marine ecosystems around the world sustain significant anthropogenic impacts from activities such as overfishing, habitat deterioration, destructive fishing practices, pollution, and climate change (Halpern et. al., 2008; McCauley et al., 2015). Of these, overfishing and unsustainable fishing practices represent a large portion of the deterioration. Multiple solutions have been proposed in order to manage fisheries and restore marine environments. Two of the most widely used management strategies are Territorial Use Rights for Fisheries (TURFs) and Marine Reserves (MRs), which are usually implemented separately (Afflerbach et al., 2014). Nevertheless, there are cases when both strategies are implemented together, thus creating TURF-reserves (Costello and Kaffine, 2009). TURFs are areas where exclusive extraction of natural resources is granted to a person or group of people, in this case fishers (Christy, 1982). The ownership of an area incentivizes fishers to sustainably manage their resources (Afflerbach et al., 2014). MRs are areas from which extraction is null or limited. While MRs have proven to increase biomass (Lester et al., 2009), enhance resilience of the bounded region (Micheli et al., 2012), and preserve genetic diversity (Munguía-Vega et al., 2015) it is not uncommon to find sites with poor management. Thus, the combination of two of the most effective management strategies seems plausible to obtain better results. In Mexico, marine reserves had been traditionally established as no-take zones within a marine protected area. Nevertheless, a 2014 regulation (NOM-049-SAG/PESC-2014) now allows the establishment of no-take zones under the name of “Fishing Refugees”. Until this change, TURF-reserves established by TURF owners had no legal support, and were only recognized as so by themselves as resource users. This scheme did not allow appropriate enforcement of the areas, and thus threatened the potential of recovery. This new regulation enables TURF owners to establish legally supported MRs within their granted area. COBI is one of the largest marine conservation and sustainable fisheries NGOs in Mexico, and has dedicated the past 15 years to collaborating with coastal communities. A large part of their work has been devoted to establish TURF-reserves with coastal communities. COBI recognizes that the initial costs of closing a fishing area to establish a TURF-reserve may be relatively high for communities, as this initially represents a decrease in fishing and income. Providing an assessment of the performance of these reserves will not only provide COBI with knowledge on the characteristics of a TURF-reserve that lead to success, but also allow them to better select other communities. This, along with the recent regulations to establish TURF-reserves, would allow COBI to promote the use of TURF-reserves amongst fishers, and work towards establishing a network of such reserves along Mexico’s coast, intended to provide social and ecological resilience to coastal communities.
Working tightly with coastal communities, COBI has recently established TURF-reserves: a coupling between Territorial User Rights for Fisheries and Marine Reserves. These TURF-reserves have been established in fishing communities in three main regions: the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of California, and the Caribbean. Amongst these regions, COBI works with a total of 15 communities, where at least one TURF-reserve has been established. Several of these reserves have been established for up to 10 years now, and fisheries recovery has been observed in particular TURF-reserves (e.g. Micheli et al., 2012, Villaseñor-Derbez et al., 2015). However, COBI lacks a national approach that comprehensively describes the effectiveness of each TURF-reserve and condenses it in a framework that enhances effectiveness.
Thanks to monitoring programs in each location, COBI has an extensive database that will provide the basis for the rigorous assessment of these reserves. Datasets include fish counts and size structure, invertebrate count data, algal cover, and habitat heterogeneity. It is important to mention that all locations were sampled before the implementation of the TURF-reserves, thus providing us with a base line for before-after analysis. There are ecological data available for each TURF-reserve and its respective control zone. Databases will allow us to evaluate the recovery of the TURF-reserves, and will be made available to the group as soon as needed by the project team.
Due to the environmental differences between the regions where COBI has established reserves, databases have slight differences between them. The first step will be to standardize databases into a common format that allows the project team to work more efficiently. The evaluation will be done at a regional level as a starting point to take into account differences in ecosystems, ecological stressors, and social structure of the communities in each region. Our approaches are directly linked to our objectives, and enumerated in the same order.
In addition to the final written report, poster, and oral presentation required by Bren School, our client has requested our project team to provide them with:
Additionally, we will develop a tool (e.g. software or other transferrable platform) for COBI to feed with future data. This will be an automated version of the framework developed in our project, and will provide a detailed evaluation of the effectiveness of the TURF-reserve(s). The framework and platform will also allow for an a priori evaluation of potential communities with which COBI is interested in collaborating with to implement future TURF-reserves. Thus, the tool could provide insights the probability of success of a project. In both scenarios, the tool will provide recommendations that will help COBI enhance effectiveness of its initiatives and obtain better results. These recommendations will be aligned with COBI’s current strategic program areas (leadership empowerment, sustainable fisheries, public policy, and marine reserves).
COBI will support (at least) one summer internship in Mexico for a MESM student(s) on the team. The intern(s) will be based out of one of COBI’s headquarter offices (Guaymas, La Paz, or Puerto Morelos), and will work within their Marine Reserves initiative, under direct supervision of the regional Marine Reserves Manager (Alvin Suárez, Arturo Hernández, or Stuart Fulton, respectively). Nevertheless, financial support (flights and accommodation) will only be covered for one intern.
We do not expect the project’s basic operations during the school year to exceed the stipend provided by the Bren School ($1,300.00).