Ecuador: Small-scale fish­er­men

Op­tim­isa­tion of ar­tis­anal fish­ing meth­ods and con­struc­tion of a fair trad­ing sys­tem is a main con­cern of this pro­jact at the coast of Ecuador. The cer­ti­fic­a­tion of a re­spons­ible fish­ing op­er­a­tion is one of the most im­port­ant fish­ing man­age­ment in­stru­ments for the fu­ture. The ob­ject­ive of cer­ti­fic­a­tion is to pro­duce and mar­ket fish in an eco­lo­gical and so­cially ac­cept­able way.

The pro­ject “Model of a sus­tain­able ar­tis­anal fish­ing op­er­a­tion” is in­ten­ded to ini­ti­ate a de­vel­op­ment pro­cess which will im­prove the gen­eral liv­ing con­di­tions of fish­er­men in small ar­tis­anal fish­ing op­er­a­tions in the Ecuadorian province of  Es­mer­al­das in the long term. At the same time the fish stocks, which are heav­ily used, will be sus­tain­ably man­aged us­ing newly de­veloped and in­tro­duced fish­ing meth­ods and work­ing pro­cesses, and will thus be pro­tec­ted. The model guidelines for fair and re­spons­ible ar­tis­anal fish­ing de­veloped by means of this pro­ject will take ac­count of the spe­cial fea­tures of de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, and will be  trans­fer­able to other coastal vil­lages in Ecuador.

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The pro­ject was sup­por­ted by the Light­house Found­a­tion from 2008 to 2011.

Nazca's pro­jects have en­cour­aged the in­volve­ment of local com­munit­ies in nature con­ser­va­tion activ­it­ies.

An ana­lysis of the mar­ine coastal en­vir­on­ment, ar­tis­anal fish­er­ies activ­it­ies and the so­cio-eco­nomic status of the pop­u­la­tion has been com­pleted.

An al­tern­at­ive man­age­ment study high­lighted the po­ten­tial of nature con­ser­va­tion agree­ments. These stud­ies are the basis fo define con­ser­va­tion goals and con­ser­va­tion meas­ures for the Gel­era-San Fran­cisco re­gion.

Polit­ical and tech­nical sup­port through the Ecuadorian De­part­ment of En­vir­on­ment, the Mu­ni­cip­al­ity of Muisne and in­sti­tu­tions such as Con­ser­va­tion In­ter­na­tional, Nature Con­servancy, Light­house Found­a­tion, Jef­frey Cook Trust, FFLA and ECO­LEX has led to the es­tab­lish­ment of the Galera-San Fran­cisco Mar­ine Re­serve.