Transcript Sustainability of Ornamental fisheries in Puerto Rico (DPhil)

ECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABILITY OF
MARINE ORNAMENTAL FISHERIES
IN PUERTO RICO
Antares Ramos Álvarez, MSc (DPhil Candidate)
Tropical Ecology Group, Department of Zoology
University of Oxford
Starting January:
Coral Management Liaison & Coastal Specialist for
Puerto Rico
NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource
Management
OVERVIEW
• Introduction to ornamental fisheries in
Puerto Rico
• Introduction to overall project (DPhil)
• Preliminary findings
• Recommendations
Ornamental Fisheries in
Puerto Rico
• Started in the early 1970s
• Fishing Law of 1998-Regulated for the first time
through permits and spp. quotas
• Limit to 20 export fish species and 8
invertebrates in 2004 Fishing Regulation (from
over 100 reported) due to fear of overexploitation – Precautionary Principle
• List of permitted species taken from list of
exports
• Currently: ~15 fishermen with permits
• Export mainly to USA (Wood 2001)
Overview of Ornamental Fisheries
• First 10 species account for 73% of exports, where
42% Gramma loreto (37,560 indiv., $72,120)
(Ojeda et al.)
• Rapid biodiversity assessment showed that export
ornamental fish are being captured below the
established quota (LeGore Environmental
Associates, Inc., 2006)
Sustainability of
Ornamental fisheries
in Puerto Rico (DPhil)
• Ecological assessment: population
counts of spp (fish and inverts) that
are not of commercial (edible)
importance and habitat assessment
• Public policy (laws and management)
• Market forces
• User perspectives: ornamental and
commercial (small-scale) fishermen
Focus of study
• Explore if list of permitted species has
ecological validity
• Ground-truth list with goal of
adding/removing species from list
• Market analysis of industry in PR
• Socio-economic background of trade
• Enforcement and management
mechanisms
• Policy recommendations
Preliminary results
• Market-unclear if there would be
demand if fishery were opened
• Sustainability-currently comparing
population assessments with market
demands
• Enforcement-lack of implementation
• Habitat-in peril
• Currently very few fishermen export
Preliminary
recommendations
• Fishery should not be opened-management must
continue and must improve
• Species list-may be room to expand
• Keep quotas-may be room to increase
• Enforcement-need for educational/training
material (will hopefully come out of study’s
grant); need for better enforcement mechanisms
• Market-there might be room for more fishermen,
however, a limit in permits (especially exporting
permits) should be established
Gracias
[email protected]
Funding bodies and collaborators:
•Department of Zoology-University of Oxford
•NOAA-Coral Reef Conservation Program General
Grant
•Caribbean Coral Reef Institute
•University of Puerto Rico-Marine Campus
•Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
•Sea Grant –Mayagüez