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Conapesca La Paz (Mexico's federal fisheries) "To some laws just don't matter"

The following shows the extent of the involvement by Conapesca La Paz (federal fisheries in La Paz) in backing and supporting illegal fisheries practices. But, for the first time in my 30 years here, the citizens are starting to take back the Sea of Cortes from the often illegal commercial fishing interests (not local hook and line fishermen), that work with Conapesca. These two groups have long controlled and ultimately severely depleted the Bay of La Paz and the Sea of Cortes.

In 2007 Sea Watch sponsored a new federal regulation to ban compressors (hookah gear) for any fish extraction in all Mexican waters. These illegal techniques http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNjmh-93XHY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-eWlzy5Pko account for 60 to 70 percent of the fish in the markets during the spring and they are the reasons the reefs are empty. We then fought for 2 years to get it passed into law, which happened 3 months ago.

Almost immediately, Conapesca (Federal Fisheries) in Baja tried to get around the new regulation by issuing new permits allowing the same people that were fishing illegally before, to continue to use compressors on the reefs under the guise of “removing nets caught on the reefs and allowing them to keep anything caught in the nets they removed”. License to Use Compressors. This shows how creative some commercial fishing interests are.

The good news is the permits just got canceled thanks to the work of Sea Watch, Conanp and Plataforma (see attached cancellations). It was made official yesterday. This is a significant win, as it is now illegal to have a compressor on your boat unless you specifically have a permit allowing it. Stopping these hookah fishermen will reduce the damage to the reefs by 90 plus %.

Cancelled Permits:
SCPP PESCADORES DEL 2001
SCPP BAHIA DDE LA PAZ
C. SIMON GOMEZ ORTIZ

Plataforma, which is now an influential and strong group of interested citizens, lawyers, businessmen, fishermen and NGO’s working to reverse the fisheries destruction in the Bay of La Paz and the surrounding area. Their ultimate goal is sustainability for all users. 3 years ago, Sea Watch was one of the original founders of this group .

The nocturnal Vigilance program of Plataforma is now working. On their first trip in the Bay of La Paz, June 22-24, they caught 8 boats fishing illegally. See attached report. I’ve also attached an Argos icon for the routes taken on the trip. They come from a VMS system that NOAA is renting to us on an experimental program. If you have google earth on your computer, just double click the icon and it will open and show you exactly where the patrol boat was and at what time. It sends a signal every 1/2 hour. Just click one of the stick pins and it will open to show you the location of the boat and the time it was there. Sometimes when you click one stick pin several more will appear. That means the boat was at the same location for a time longer than 1/2 hour. If you see 10 stick pins appear, it was there for 5 hours, etc Try it, it’s very cool and if you have questions I will gladly answer them.

Lastly, the pictures from the first vigilance trip are on the website below.

Watch First Vigilance Trip Gallery

Vigilance VMS Traced Route – Google Earth

Also, every 20 days (Observatorio Ciudadano) the vigilance program of Plataforma, that Sea Watch Mexico helped start and fund) will have a 1/2 page in the La Paz paper that lists the boats stopped, the denuncias filed, what the authorities have done to date and the final resolution (fines issued). It will be a score card that forces the authorities to do their job which is to arrest boats fishing illegally and prosecute them.

Finally, there are now working vigilance groups from Todos Santos to Loreto. We are working to get daily communication, intelligence and coordination between all the groups. Approximately 50 people are now working directly on vigilance and enforcement between Cabo and Loreto. We will soon publish a list of the people, their job and contact information as well as monthly results by area.

Watch 1st Vigilance Report – Excel File

Leave a comment:

1. Sounds like you are really beginning to accomplish positive steps towards restoring and protecting the Sea of Cortes. I kayak fish in San Carlos and have noticed the absolute lack of fish wherever the hookah rigs operate.

   — John Wheatley · Aug 28, 11:51 · #

2. Unbelievable. Thank you for shining a light on Conapesca’s corrupt practices. Transparency cures a lot of problems.

   — David McMurdie · Sep 13, 18:53 · #

3. So all the illegal hookah fishermen are getting around your law by driving to the beaches between La Paz and Los Barriles, entering with their gear directly from the shore, harvesting the reef fish and placing them into truck-mounted tanks that look like oil drums, then leaving by the main highways. They are not from our area and begin around March. Who do we call to take down these guys? Did I mention the pangas with nets over the reefs during the Easter weeks? No one patrols here then or on the weekends when these guys are working it during daylight hours as hard as they can. What do we do about it? Again these are visiting boats, not locals but they are grabbing all they can knowing that no one will do anything about them. We could use some help down here.

   — vicki · Dec 28, 20:11 · #

4. Hi Vicki

   First thanks for the input. You could help us by filing an eyereport ( http://seawatch.org/en/Resource-Library/359/report-illegal-fishing ) and/or by calling in English to 612-1025266 La Paz or in English/Spanish to attorney Maria Ugarte 6121188822 La Paz. We will have someone from Cabo come, if not someone from La Paz. The Easter holidays are bad as everyone is trying to get fish. Thanks for getting involved.

   Regards,

   MM
   Founder
   Sea Watch
   Sea Watch, Mexico

   — Mike McGettigan · Dec 30, 13:09 · #