At about 5:00 am fishers Jose Chaar and Papote Santana, like nearly all of the small-scale commercial operators that make up 90% of the world's fishers, depart from the dock to search for fish they can catch and sell locally. As they have done for years, Jose and Papote spend his days on the ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico looking for tuna and swordfish to support themselves and their families.
In recent years though, as fisheries’ health has evolved, the small-scale fishers in Puerto Rico have worked to navigate the highly regulated fisheries in the area. This is one reason why many in Puerto Rico’s fishing community have begun to support the move towards data modernization to better understand, manage, and promote local legally caught fish in the area.
It is important to know which species should be consumed and which should be protected, their regulations, closures and minimum sizes that protect the various species that we consume locally. Overfishing can also be an additional stressor to marine ecosystems, contributing to a decline to overall health. It is important to be able to support and promote local, legal seafood which the Puerto Rico Sustainable Seafood campaign “Pesca Responsible” seeks to address to help consumers as well as fishers. By highlighting fish caught legally, the campaign works to preserve the long-term health of the Puerto Rican fisheries.
Historically, determining the source of a catch has been difficult if not impossible, but with new Electronic Monitoring (EM) technology, this kind of location verification is now an achievable goal. With a grant supported by the Walton Family Foundation and David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Net Gains Alliance worked with many fishers like Jose and Papote through Conservación ConCiencia to implement Electronic Monitoring (EM) on small vessels with federal Highly Migratory Species permits in Puerto Rican waters (HMS Caribbean Commercial Small Boat Commercial Fishing Permit or endorsement for legally selling HMS).
A first for the Caribbean and only the third implementation of EM on small-scale fishing operations in the world, this was an exciting new approach for all involved.
Commercial fishers in Puerto Rico have embraced this technology primarily because it enables them to certify the legality of their local catch, which can translate into a sales price increase of up to 130%. Moving forward, the Puerto Rico Sustainable seafood campaign is working to increase restaurants’ awareness of this new ability to certify locally caught fish and help connect these businesses directly with fishers using EM technology.
The roll-out of EM in small scale vessels in the Caribbean is continuing, building on the success of this first use. By fostering partnerships with fishers, the restaurant industry, and local organizations like Conservacion ConCiencia, the Net Gains Alliance is working to modernize fishing fleets to sustain the health of the waters and those like Jose and Papote who rely on them for their livelihoods.
As the fishing community has discovered, a better understanding of fish stocks as delivered by better data has wider-ranging impacts than even previously anticipated. Most recently, the impact of Hurricane Fiona disrupted fishing in the area, but fishers are finding that with the help of EM they are more resilient as they leverage information to manage fisheries disrupted by the storm. Looking ahead, the EM work in Puerto Rico provides a template for expanding data modernization into other fisheries and areas of the Caribbean and beyond.
