Chile-Mexico Fund supports capacity building for small-scale fisheries management in both countries
November 13th, 2024The project is executed by IFOP and IMIPAS institutes, and incorporates the principles of gender equality, inclusion, aquaculture-fisheries technology training, and climate change.
Santiago, October 30, 2024.- The Fisheries Development Institute (IFOP) together with the Mexican Institute for Sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (IMIPAS) began, this second semester, the execution of a cooperation project that aims to develop co-management processes for small-scale fisheries, with an emphasis on benthic resources on Chiloé Island, Ancud Bay, in southern Chile; and in the towns of Celestún, Sisal, Progreso and Río Lagartos in Yucatán, Mexico, which incorporate the principles of gender equality, inclusion, aquaculture-fisheries technology training, and climate change.
This initiative, called “Capacity building for co-management of fisheries and aquaculture in small-scale fisheries as a contribution to public policies in Mexico and Chile,” will be implemented over 24 months and is funded by the Chile-Mexico Joint Cooperation Fund. In Chile, representatives of benthic management committees, fishermen, pulp collectors, and crab fishermen from Ancud, in Chiloé, will benefit; while in Mexico, fishermen from Celestún, Sisal, Río Lagartos, and Progreso, all in the State of Yucatán, will benefit.
The project director, on the Chilean side, is the IFOP senior researcher, Nancy Barahona Toledo, who stated that she is “very motivated with the development of this study, which will allow progress in the work of the benthic resource management committees with a gender focus and, in addition, will allow two technological tours to be carried out, one to each country, which include the participation of the members of the work teams and fishermen and women, in order to exchange knowledge and experiences of co-management in small-scale fisheries.”
For the development of this initiative, we will work with the Chilean non-governmental organization Conectar para Conservar (CPC), with whom we will develop the learning networks associated with benthic resource management committees; the Mexican non-governmental organization Comunidad y Biodiversidad A.C. (COBI), who will address the issues associated with gender; and a university to advance in the issues of self-reporting and scientific monitoring of fishing activity.
Since its creation in 2006, the Chile-Mexico Fund has executed 220 projects for mutual benefit; and is part of the Strategic Partnership Agreement signed between the Republic of Chile and the United Mexican States. It is an international cooperation instrument intended to finance the execution of bilateral and trilateral programs, projects and/or actions that promote cooperation between Chile and Mexico or between both states towards a third developing country and is managed by the Chilean Agency for International Development Cooperation (AGCID) and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID).