Overview
Reason for inactivity: The inactivity of the fishery has been marked by the lack of catches, the small size of the organisms, the increase in the depth the resource are, etc., caused mainly by the El Niño event, this makes it difficult to continue implementing the improvements. The FIP is put on pause until the reactivation of the catches.
The national states that participate in the squid fishery are Baja California, Baja California Sur (BCS), Sinaloa and Sonora (200 fishing permits for larger vessels and 1800 fishing permits for smaller vessels). A large percentage of the fishing happens in the localities of Santa Rosalía, in BCS, and in Guaymas, Sonora, which are historically important places in the squid fishery.
The Gulf of California squid fishery was evaluated in 2014 by the Monterey Bay Aquarium - Seafood Watch Program, which is an independent international body that evaluates marine and aquaculture resources. The fishery received a "Good Alternative" rating for this fishery.
This was the principal reason for the operating producers (represented by the Giant Squid National Product System Committee) of the squid fishery to commit to implementing a Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) in March 2017 ; in order to bring awareness to the sustainable practices of this fishery as well as to continue improving fishing practices, as the fishery has great potential to be managed with new fisheries reforms.
This resource can be managed using good fishing practices that allow it to be recognized nationally and internationally as a sustainable fishery, therefore allowing it access to better markets. In addition to promoting the sustainable management of the species, the best management policies for the resources and the transparency of the processes can be highlighted.
This FIP is going to comprehensive (2020-2022).
The objective of this FIP is to transform the management of artisanal and industrial for the jumbo squid fishery in Mexico, through the implementation of all 28 indicators of the international sustainable fishing standard MSC with a participatory approach, and give international and national recognition of these improvements, by 2022.
Specifically, the FIP aims to achieve the following:
- Promote the updating and publicly of the stock assessment information annually, including other/additional reference points to the fishery-addressing the uncertainty (December 2022).
- Improve the information related to the harvest strategy on all other fishery removals from the stock (December 2022).
- Update publicly assess the ecosystem’s fishery’s impacts (Ecopath analysis) and incorporate this approach in the Fishery Management Plan (December 2022).
- Promote the development of the methodology to achieve the specific objectives detailed in the Fishery Management Plan (December 2022).
- Continue generating information of the fishery through the monitoring of fishing logbooks (artisanal) and keep implementing SIICAPAL platform (industrial) -if fishery gets active (December 2022).
Additional to the MSC standard:
- Seek support and collaboration opportunities with different stakeholders and for instances that can provide an improvement to the fishery.
- Keep generating biological and technical information about the jumbo squid fishery, through collaboration between stakeholders.
- To be evaluated again by the Monterey Bay Aquarium (MBA) Seafood Watch and to be rated as "Green/Best Choice".