Analysis of Bejuco's Bottom Longline Spotted Snapper
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ANALYSIS OF BEJUCO’S BOTTOM LONGLINE SPOTTED SNAPPER FISHERY, PACIFIC COAST, COSTA RICA Abstract Final project report submitted to Resource Legacy Fund regarding grant #2012- 0090: an analysis of fisheries catch data collected from 2007 to 2013 as it relates to the fulfillment of Marine Stewardship Council performance indicators identified during the fishery’s pre-assessment as being likely to receive scores below 80 Written by Andy Bystrom [email protected] Contents Analysis of Bejuco’s bottom longline spotted snapper fishery ..................................................................... 2 Project background ................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction to the spotted rose snapper ................................................................................................ 4 General project methods 2007-2013 ........................................................................................................ 4 Performance indicator results .................................................................................................................. 5 Outcome: stock status (L. guttatus) ...................................................................................................... 7 Outcome: Retained species stock status ............................................................................................ 23 By-catch species: Information/Monitoring ......................................................................................... 23 Ecosystem: Outcome status ................................................................................................................ 23 Ecosystem: Information/Monitoring .................................................................................................. 23 ETP species: outcome status ............................................................................................................... 36 ETP species: Information/Monitoring ................................................................................................. 36 Habitats: Information/Monitoring ...................................................................................................... 36 Retained species: Management strategy ........................................................................................... 44 By-catch species: Management strategy ............................................................................................ 45 Habitats: Management strategy ......................................................................................................... 45 Ecosystem: Management strategy ..................................................................................................... 45 Fishery Specific Management System: Fishery Specific Objectives .................................................... 46 Fishery Specific Management System ................................................................................................ 46 Governance and Policy: Consultation, Roles and Responsibilities ..................................................... 47 Governance and Policy: Long term objectives .................................................................................... 47 Governance and Policy: Incentives for Sustainable Fishing ................................................................ 47 Discussion and next steps ....................................................................................................................... 48 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................ 50 Appendix 1 - project pictures .................................................................................................................. 54 Appendix 2 - project expenses ................................................................................................................ 60 1 Analysis of Bejuco’s bottom longline spotted snapper fishery Since 2007 Pretoma has partnered with the Resource Legacy Fund to collect artisanal bottom longline fishery data in Bejuco, Costa Rica. Seven years’ worth of catch data is being analyzed to determine population dynamics for the fishery’s target species, the spotted rose snapper (Lutjanus guttatus), as well as for its retained and by-catch species. While the analysis process has only just begun, the fishery’s ecological impacts are beginning to come into focus. This process will lead to the development of sustainability indicators that will enhance the fishery’s application for a Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification. Approval of Pretoma’s October 2012 proposal by RLF’s Sustainable Fisheries Fund was the third installment of funding support. The proposal addressed fishery performance indicators (PIs) that might receive pre-conditions (a score below 60) as determined by Scientific Certification System’s (SCS) pre-assessment in May 2011, thereby causing the fishery to fail a full MSC assessment. The following report details the technical progress made towards fulfilling these PI requirements. Project background Pretoma is a small grass roots non-government, nonprofit, civil association, registered as such under the Costa Rican Public Register (#3-002-212657) on September 14, 1997, and declared of public interest in January of 2008 (Executive Decree 34150-J). Currently, Pretoma operates with a full-time staff of seven, an office in San José, and a Field Station in San Francisco de Coyote. Our mission is to protect and restore sea turtles, sharks, and other endangered marine species, by advancing a vision of sustainable fishing practices and community based conservation through policy reform, targeted media use, public education, grassroots activism, and strategic litigation. The organization’s work began with sea turtle nesting beach protection and conservation campaigns and has evolved over the past 16 to include national, regional, and global shark conservation campaigns and marine protected area development. Pretoma’s president and founder, Randall Arauz has been internationally recognized time and again for his work with shark conservation, winning the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prize, the 2010 Gothenborg Prize for Sustainable Development, the 2004 Whitley Award for Nature, among others. Andy Bystrom’s (Pretoma managing director) “Sustainable Coastal Development Model” won National Geographic’s and Ashoka Changemakers 2010 Geotourism Competition and was a finalist for The Ocean Exchange’s 2011 Gulfstream Navigator Award. In 2007 Pretoma began working in the district of Bejuco along Costa Rica’s Northern Pacific coast with three bottom longline snapper fishing associations (Association of Coyote Fishers-Aspecoy, Association of Punta Coyote Fishers-Aspepuco, Association of Bejuco Fishers-Asobejuco) on the design of a replicable sustainable coastal development model. The work focuses on the socioeconomic development of small-scale artisanal fisheries through the application of sustainable resource extraction (fishing) methods and responsible local consumption trends. Pretoma has been fortunate to partner with RLF, Costa Rica’s Environmental Ministry (Minae) and its local subsidiary the Tempisque Conservation Area (ACT), Conservation International, and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on this project and its mission to define and apply a solution that addresses the complex social, environmental, and economic problems that coastal community members in developing countries face. 2 At the heart of this model is the ongoing design of an ecosystem management strategy for this fishery, one that includes the area’s two wildlife refuges and adjacent multi-use marine protected areas (MPA). The first of these protected areas, the Caletas-Arío National Wildlife Refuge (RNVSCA) and its adjacent Marine Protected Area (MPA), was created in 2006 with the Camaronal National Wildlife Refuge (RNVSCAM) and its MPA following shortly thereafter in 2009. Both MPAs prohibit the use of certain destructive fishing techniques including trawl nets, gillnets, and surface longlines while allowing for such artisanal gear types to be used such as handlines and bottom demersal longlines. The area’s MPAs have separate management plans that are currently being reviewed by the ACT. Their expanse, however, does not include the entire Bejuco bottom longline fishery’s grounds as there is an unprotected “triangle” between the MPAs where shrimp trawlers and gillnet users abound. In order to better protect the local snapper stock, Pretoma and the local fishing associations are spearheading a campaign to “close the triangle” and create a new multi-use MPA that would include the entire unprotected area and link the existing two MPAs, thus creating one contiguously protected zone managed under an ecosystem strategy with sustainable resource use as its main objective (Fig. 1). Fig. 1. Site map of the Bejuco artisanal bottom longline snapper fishery including the two established MPAs and the proposed protected “triangle” While the fishery’s overall impact is small compared to that of Costa Rica’s industrial fleet, bottom longline fishers apply their trade up and down the country’s Pacific coast, making project replication an important component of the work’s activities, having already been replicated in Terraba-Sierpe along the country’s central Pacific coast. Pretoma’s most recent work has focused