Handline

Industry led FIP started by Netuno USA, Inc targeting Lane (LS) and Yellowtail Snappers (YTL)Fisheries in the Northeast States (LME 16 – from Piaui to Bahia, Olavo et al 2022). Landings are leaded by Ceara and Bahia State. In the first one, there is an industrial fleet, but most of the landings are made by a semi artisanal fleet, wooden made, with a total length varying between 9 and 13 meters and equipped with a 60 to 160Hp diesel engine. Fisheries are done both with handlines and pots. For line fishing, sardines and common scad are commonly used as bait. For pots, fisherman uses lard and even pieces of ceramics as attractor. Olavo et al. (2022) classified the Lane Snapper stock as underexploited (B2021/BMSY = 1.28) and without overfishing (F2021/FMSY = 0.88). The Yellowtail Snapper on the other hand shows evidence of overfishing (0.60 and 1,37 respectively), anyway, there is no catch limit for fishing either Lane or Yellowtail Snapper and the government hasn’t had a continuous landing data collection program since 2008. The lack of knowledge and track of landings are not limited to LS & YTS but also for non-target species and eventual ETP interactions. Present MSC/PA showed that the fisheries don’t have an update stock assessments and data collection programs that the government used to have until 2012 was suspended and not yet resumed. Therefore are some management measures in place such as the mandatory delivery of production maps reports and the use of satellite tracking navigation system (>10  meters boats) there are no evidence of compliance. So, basic data fisheries production is obtained by some landings data and production maps reports (mapa de bordo) provided by fishing companies and some academic sampling. This is not enough, and even the federal agency responsible for fisheries management IBAMA-Brazilian Environment Institute says that “the actual systems present deficiencies that basically reside in the insufficient number of data collectors, lack of commitment from the production sector and absence of an integrated institutional policy for generating national landings statistics”.

La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve (REBIEN, for its acronym in Spanish) is a 115,652-hectare coastal protected
area that includes environmental lakes, coastal lagoons, and mangrove ecosystems. It is located in the Gulf of
Tehuantepec the southern state of Chiapas, close to the border with Guatemala. Fishing activities are the main
sources of protein and livelihood for the local communities and approximately 18 small-scale cooperatives (600
fishermen) hold permits and/or concessions for shrimp, and finfish, in the REBIEN (SEMARNAT-CONANP 2009,
Rodríguez-Perafán, 2014, Armengol et al., 2021). Coastal Chiapas has a regionally important small-scale handline marine finfish fishery, where snook and snapper species are the most important species in terms of commercial quality and market value, together with white shrimp (Rodríguez-Perafán 2014). During 2020 year, the average annual production of snook (Centropomus spp) and snapper (Lutjanus peru) was 376 and ~94 tons for the state of Chiapas and the cooperatives in the REBIEN respectively. However, according to the logbooks of fishing production for the last five years, the cooperatives in the REBIEN have registered significant decreases in their total catches of marine finfish (~30%).

The Fishery Improvement Project (FIP) will launch with the participation of one cooperative, with the intention of including more groups as the benefits of participating in the FIP become apparent. The SCPP El Castaño cooperative includes over 36 members with 30 vessels and during the last five years, it has caught an annual average of 10 tons of finfish per year. This cooperative has a concession with multiple fishing areas, where the main fishing gear for finfish is the handline (line and hook). The cooperative shows two main harvest seasons (i) a high season that includes from May to September and (ii) a low season
that corresponds to the months of October to April. The cooperative also sets time windows for daily fishing activities based on the tidal cycle: (i) high tide in the morning (~3 hours) and (ii) low tide in the afternoon (~3 hours). Due to the significant decreases in their total catches, this cooperative recognizes the need for better management and harvest practices, as well as, established no-fishing and refuge areas as a strategy for the protection of fishing resources. Currently, due to the lack of a capture strategy and specific objectives of the snook and snapper fishery, the status of the population and its impact on the habitat and associated species are unknown.

Octopus is an important export seafood commodity in Indonesia with the country listed as one of the big four octopus producers globally. This fishery is an artisanal fishery, nevertheless, it significantly contributes to the community's livelihood. Sulawesi waters (Fisheries Management Areas 713, 714, and 715/FAO Area 71) cover more than 50% of the octopus national product, it produces high income for the fishers, but the detailed information about this fishery is not well known, i.e. the condition of the stock, unregulated, unreported and value-loss indication. The FIP aims to emphasize co-management among the stakeholders by developing adequate scientific research to support the sustainability of the stock and ecosystem in collaboration with universities and research entities, as a basis for management action at both national (through national octopus fisheries management plan with the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries) and grass-root level with the community. This combination is expected to strengthen community participation in fishery management leading to improvement below the water in 2027.

The octopus fishery in the Unit of Assessment (UoA) is dominated by traditional fishing gears such as handline and spear. Fishers use small vessels under 1 Gross Tonnage (GT), and in some cases fish without vessels by gleaning the octopus near the shoreline during the low tide. This FIP is estimated to cover 300 fishers in several locations: Wakatobi, Selayar, Banggai Laut - Kepulauan, Luwuk, and Tojo Una-Una Regencies. This FIP is led by Yayasan Pesisir Lestari (YPL) and Blue Ventures, which are NGOs/CSOs that support community-led fisheries management: JAPESDA, FORKANI, FONEB, KOMANANGI, LINI, SFP, fishers group within the UoA. This FIP aims to link the grassroots movement with the national-level stakeholders and is expected to catalyze improvement by achieving the objectives of this FIP. 

Artisanal fishing in Santa Rosalía-Mulegé has drastically decreased in recent years. Much of the decline is due to the complete collapse of the jumbo squid fishery. As the squid fishery declined, artisanal fishermen shifted their effort to yellowtails, snappers and groupers species, which are now showing signs of overfishing.

The motivation for undertaking this FIP is to enable local stakeholders to improve the biological, social and economic system associated with small-scale fishing in the Santa Rosalía-Mulegé corridor, so that fishers and others who depend on fishing resources are incentivized to implement positive changes, and can share the benefits and enjoy a better quality of life. We believe this is possible if the systems are managed for long-term sustainability, ensuring that the benefits are propagated and enjoyed by future generations.

This multi-species finfish artisanal fishery was selected for a FIP because we believe that it is possible to significantly improve its performance, certainly relative to its existing conditions, so that local fish populations, fishers, buyers and consumers benefit. Whether we achieve this objective depends on our ability to identify the factors that limit or prevent the existing fishery from becoming more productive, stable and resilient to external shocks and to identify measures to overcome these limitations. It also depends on the willingness of local fishers and others to adopt and implement these measures, and the likelihood that, once implemented, these measures will produce the desired results. We believe these results are desirable and achievable.

The potential barriers to achieving sustainability are myriad. However, these barriers could be overcome because:

• There is a long tradition of small-boat (‘pangas’) fishing in the Santa Rosalía-Mulegé corridor;

• Local fishers have the potential to influence the abundance, survival and/or growth of the local fish populations;

• The catches of yellowtail, snappers and groupers is an important source of income for local fishers and the Santa Rosalía-Mulegé community;

• The fisher community from the Santa Rosalía-Mulegé corridor come from similar socioeconomic backgrounds; their ability to fish (access to permits, equipment, etc.) and the physical, biological, social and economic factors that affect them are common to all;

• There is potential support among the community, institutions, project partners and project funders; and

• There are viable options to improve the fishery in probable future scenarios.

During the Fishery Pre-Assessment, discussions with local fishers, observations of fishing behavior and catch records, and sampling data collected at various fishing ports determined that yellowtail, snapper, and grouper (represented by eight species) dominate catches in the Santa Rosalía-Mulegé corridor, caught with hook and line ("piola," local Mexican name) and surrounding gillnets ("chinchorro") as fishing gear.

Four separate Assessment Units (UoA) were identified to facilitate our fisheries assessment and improvement work plan:

• Yellowtail handline. There is a group of fishers who target yellowtail with handlines. They do not use gillnets during the same fishing days from the same fishing boats. The local yellowtail fishery targets fish from a population throughout the Gulf of California, so the actual population is larger than the geographic area covered by this PA. The yellowtail fishery only occurs when the migratory yellowtail is found in the local area.

• Yellowtail gillnet. A separate, but smaller, number of fishers target the same yellowtail population described above using gillnets, depending on the availability and abundance of this resource. Some fishers can sometimes switch from handlines to gillnets when targeting yellowtail, but not on the same day.

• Snapper handline. Handline fishers go after snappers, available year-round, usually when yellowtail is less available. They do not handline for other species on the same trips and sometimes target snappers and yellowtails during the same fishing trip. Because snappers are relatively territorial, the stock is roughly defined as those that occur within the SRMC geography.

• Grouper handline. A distinct handline fishery occurs by season or availability for grouper species. Some of the same anglers switch from other species to groupers, but usually only target groupers on a given fishing trip. Because groupers are territorial, the stock is roughly defined as those that occur within the geography of the SRMC area.

Because these 4 UoAs represent eight species exploited by two different fishing gears, by the same fishing fleet operating in the same fishing area under the same economic units and commercial fishing permit, recommendations provided by the PA for each one of 4 UoAs were compiled and prioritized within this multispecies finfish fishery to develop the FIP workplan and address the challenges of the fishery to improve its performance against the MSC standards indicators.

Although it is necessary to continue to implement a comprehensive program of monitoring fishing data for separate species and gear in order to detect changes in species abundance and assess species vulnerability to define specific measures and limit threats to the most vulnerable, combining the PA recommendations for this multispecies fishery will allow 1) to harmonize this FIP with other FIPs that are being implemented in other areas of the Gulf of California for the same species, and 2) facilitate the adoption of unified/coherent fisheries management measures within the entire Gulf of California region.

It is also expected that promoting and implementing fisheries enhancement measures for this single combined UoA will indirectly benefit each of the 4 separate UoAs through a potential spillover effect, as measures will be taken for the most vulnerable species.