costa rica fishing industry

Fish and the Fishing Industry In Peril

Fish species such as the porgy and the corvina are languishing in the seas of Central America, and the future of small-scale fishing operations is in jeopardy due to overexploitation of fish stocks and lack of planning.

Small fishing operations in Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala face an uncertain future as a result of the heavy demand for the ocean's resources, contributing to questionable fishing techniques that involve poisons or explosives.

These Central American countries do not have development plans that regulate fishing or provide economic options for this non-industrial sector, say sources consulted by Tierramérica.

Part of the problem in Costa Rica is that 70 percent of the 4,000 fisherfolk are concentrated in the northwestern Gulf of Nicoya, on the Pacific, and the country's leading fishery, technical director of the Fisheries Institute.

Costa Rican fishing laws date back 52 years and do not provide a legal framework for penalizing illegal practices, and fail to offer alternatives for the small-scale fisherfolk.

Some of the methods used that are harmful to the marine ecosystem are the use of fine-mesh nets, which capture immature shrimp, or dragging, which entails sinking the net to the sea floor and then bringing up any species that happens to be caught in it.

The National University and are working to produce a management plan that includes training for the people involved in the Costa Rican fishing sector.

In El Salvador, small fishing operations caught 12 million kg of fish in 2002, worth 14 million dollars, compared to just 2 million kg in the industrial fishing sector.

But the industrial side took in 13 million dollars because it is dedicated almost exclusively to catching shrimp, the species in highest demand on the seafood market.

Because they catch few shrimp, the fisherfolk look for ways to boost the volume of their fish catches.

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