Marine Protected Areas in the Gulf of California, Sonora, Mexico

Relationship 1

Fishers depend on the fishery resources year-round.

-(Mostly) Small-scale fishers from BKI and other communities in Sonora and Baja California
-(Occasionally) Large-scale fisheries (e.g. shark, shrimp, fish trawling, sardine purse seining)
-(Occasionally) Sport fishers from the US (e.g. large groupers and pelagic species such as yellowtail jack and dorado).

ISPM has always been seen as a temporary refuge because of its location – it is not an area that is regularly used by individual fishers. It’s a backup area where they can get good catches when having the time, money, and willingness to make the trip (a visit may require camping 3-4 nights). There is a prevalent general belief that the island’s populations quickly “bounce back” if there is not much more pressure from other fishers.

Relationship 2

COBI was hired in 2000 to conduct feasibility study for the establishment of a new MPA and to facilitate a negotiation forum between fishers and the government. They obtained baseline information regarding fishers and local government officials' perceptions and conducted educational workshops.

Strength: NGOs and academia have played important roles in empowering stakeholders, producing data and proposals with scientific backup, facilitating the communication and helping bridge local ecological knowledge with experimental design, validating fishermen's knowledge and actions within higher local and federal government entities.

Relationship 3

Federal government's initiative to begin a discussion with BKI to re-categorizing the ISPM as a biosphere reserve and adding the marine environment to the overall management and protection of the island. COBI conducted a negotiation workshop in which the stakeholders designed the final zoning of the new reserve, which culminated in the presentation of a formal proposal to the federal government to re-categorize the existing reserve (the island) as a biosphere reserve. The proposal submitted by COBI, CEGI, and Prescott took 2 years to be formalized and published in the Federal Register (in 2002). When the government proposed to establish a core zone, fishers agreed since they did not have much to lose and had more to gain by testing it as a management tool.

Even in 2009 there is still not enough personnel dedicated to its management, monitoring, and enforcement. NGOs and academia have played important roles in working with the government and fishing sectors to establish reserves as management and conservation tools.

Vulnerability: ISPM is 60 km offshore (relatively distant), this giving way to mistrust as to whether the area is being poached in or not. It also makes it difficult to monitor, increasing transaction costs associated with enforcement. .

Relationship 4

No-Take Zones (NTZs) prohibit harvesting within them, which reduces the total stock size, and this is made up for by harvesting outside the NTZs. This calls for assessment of spatio-temporal changes in fishing effort and species targeted after the establishment of the NTZs.

Relationship 5

Relationship 6

The establishment of a core zone provided an experiment as a management tool and allowed fishers from BKI to be given preferential access to the area and give a legal means to control access of highly impacting fishing activities such as bottom fish trawling.
-Vulnerabilities: Conflicts arising with respect to which communities should be granted these rights and who decides to grant these rights (constitutional rules).

Between 2003 and 2008, researchers from the NGOs and Prescott College and staff from the MPA conducted “surprise” visits on 258 separate occasions to record human activities, and on 39% of these visits, both commercial and sport fishers were seen fishing within the core zone, even after an extensive public education campaign.