It has been The divers followed the coast two hours later. When they reach their designated GPS points in the Gulf of Mexico, the engines of their boats go to the thunder. In the couple, they enter the Selston Fashing Refuse Zone, one of the largest Mexico. Their ritual is absolute: Keep on the wings, adjust the vests and hoses, clean wizers, and load oxygen tanks and weight. For the next few minutes, their lives depend on this place of hope.
They are trying to restore Fisheries here on the way to fall or fall. This shelter, set up a catch zone In 2019Covered 324 square kilometers and is monitored by a group of Yukatan Coast Submarine Monitoring Community Group, community divers and fishermen, supported by Mexican Institute personnel and supported by Sustainable Fisheries and Equality (IMIPA). Their methodology combines local knowledge in a scientific strict.
The problem they face is at a global level: excessive fishing and environmental degradation is eliminating the biological diversity of the oceans, in many countries there is a lack of willingness or resources to tackle this problem. In 2024, as the sea level broke the record all the time, the world for nature funded The living planet The report shows that in the last 50 years, maritime population has decreased by 56 % worldwide. The current maritime population has more than a third of the population.
In Mexico, more than 700 marine species have been developed in 83 fishermen, supporting 200,000 Mexican families. Mexico’s analysis Charter of National Fishing The IMIPAS indicates that 17 % of the country’s fishing has deteriorated, 62 % are being exploited at the maximum sustainable level, and 15 % have no information about their state. When the conservation of non -profit Osiana analyzed the same figure, it turned out that 34 % of Mexico’s fishing “is in poor condition,” says Eastbin Garcia Piya, Osiana’s Research and Public Policy Coordinator Eastbin Garcia Pia.
Part of the problem is that, under Mexico’s law, no one is obliged to take care of the country’s fishing health. Mexico’s ordinary fishing law does not obey the government to accept this responsibility. Osiana has requested to change it, and, in the absence of legislative interest, even in 2021 filed a stay order against the Congress of the Union, which accused of human rights abuses, such as a healthy environment and access to food. This influenced the proposal to resurrect Mexico’s deteriorating fishing zone, just because it was not analyzed or approved by Congress, and the project was frozen.
Faced with this uncertainty, communities have taken things into their hands. Although the government is not obliged to protect and restore the country’s fishing, people can request shelter to protect and resettle the maritime environmental system. And today, there are refugees in the Baja California pig, Quantana Row, and Campa, with a total of 2 million hectares and directly or indirectly, 130 species have benefited.
“When the first proposal was made, it turned out to be crazy,” says Eliasia Pot, an IMIPAS researcher and head of the Regional Center for Water Agriculture and Fisheries Research in Eucalypton. “Some people think it is shutting down the sea, but not so. It is working in a sustainable way, with the supervision of society.”
Limits of abundance
One day before the monitoring begins, the Selston team gathers under a large Palpa. Kobe’s scientific diving expert, Jacob Kamal, reviews the project the next few days. He gives a joke and gives practical advice, using coconut, showing how to measure sea cucumbers and sea slows.
They talk about maritime cucumbers because it is not part of Mexico’s gastrointestinal tract, but its fishing has made a lot of profits on the coast. In the Chinese market, this creature can take more than $ 150 per plate. Hype has driven ways that are detrimental to the health of the ecosystem and fishermen, such as diving using one HoisakA temporary diving machine that operates on gasoline and pumps oxygen under a tube for divers below the surface. Sanitary towels sometimes stand like an oil filter, while mint pills are taken to reduce the taste of gas. In Selston, no one denies the risk of diving from this machine. Many people know someone who has been an accident or died of decomposition.
As of 2012, there was an abundance of cucumbers in the area, but its closed seasons violated the species to the brink of extinction. The divers began to go deep and deep to hunt them. The situation became unbearable. Subsequently, a group of fishermen sought help from IMIPAS researchers to establish an area where the sea could have a chance to recover.