The Billfish Foundation (TBF)

Photo Courtesy of Dwight Smith

The Billfish Foundation (TBF) is correcting a misleading communication sent from another source last week that stated a ban on the export of sailfish from Costa Rica had been approved. No definitive action has been taken in Costa Rica to ban sailfish exports.

The Costa Rican fisheries management commission, INCOPESCA, reviewed a draft proposal to take such action, which we and the local sportfishing associations were instrumental in getting before decision makers. The commission failed to approve the proposal at the last two meetings; one of their attorneys advised that the commission may not have the legal authority to take such action.

TBF's Conservation Director of Central America, who resides in Costa Rica, is on top of billfish conservation strategies throughout the region working with local legal counsel and local sportfishing associations. Together we are working diligently to secure additional conservation measures for sailfish, including a ban on exports. TBF's campaign includes:

• working with Costa Rican legal counsel and our Central American Conservation Director to ban sailfish exports, as was first proposed at a September meeting TBF arranged between Costa Rican sportfishing and commercial fishing leaders following our meetings with representatives of President Arias and legal counsel;
  
• assisting in the incorporation of a Costa Rican national sportfishing federation to represent sportfishing conservation interests from both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts;
  
• securing funding to implement a top-down and bottom-up strategy to support the new federation and billfish conservation interests before top decision makers in San Jose;
  
• amending existing Costa Rican law to place additional seats representing sportfishing and tourism interests on the Board of Directors of INCOPESCA;
  
• conducting a ground breaking socio-economic study of the impacts that flow from all sportfishing tourism in Costa Rica, consistent with our recent study in Mexico;
  
• developing a Central American sportfishing and billfish management plan through a cooperative agreement signed with OSPESCA, the fisheries management authority representing all nations of Central America; and
  
• representing billfish conservation and sportfishing interests as the only authorized sportfishing conservation delegates to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission - the treaty chartered fisheries management authority for eastern tropical Pacific highly migratory species.

TBF is fighting for billfish conservation throughout the world. We use biological and socio-economic science and legal facts, coupled with our reputation for integrity and honesty, in dealing with governments, international fisheries management commissions and the private sector.

If you would like to receive meaningful dividends on your conservation investment for the good of the fish, sportfishing and the ocean, join TBF and make a donation to support our work by contacting Julia Shafer. If you would like to receive our E'News, please sign up on our website.

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Friday, August 22, 2008 INCOPESCA To Vote On Sailfish Export Ban By Britton Jacob-Schram Costa Rica’s fisheries governing body is to vote on a decree banning the exportation of sailfish from the country, it was learned earlier this week. Though there is no set time frame for a vote, fisheries experts are hopeful this could be a step in the right direction for a heavily-depleted multi-million dollar sport fishing industry. Setting aside industry differences, representatives from both sport fishing and commercial fishing sectors met in San José, Monday, in an attempt to thrash out ideas in front of the country’s Institute of Fishing and Aquaculture (INCOPESCA). Other exemplary sport fishing industries such as México’s Los Cabos — which brought in an estimated $1.125 billion to the regional economy and $245.5 million to government coffers, last year alone — were highlighted during the conference. “We’re mildly optimistic that we can make some progress at this point,” said the chief scientist for international conservation organization The Billfish Foundation, Dr Russell Nelson. “We were very happy to see so many Costa Ricans engaged in the fishing business come and express their concern to INCOPESCA.” There are a number of suggestions, which came from the meeting and which the Executive Director of INCOPESCA, Carlos Villalobos, will be assembling and placing in front of the Institute’s board of directors. “The primary one being a no exportation policy on sailfish,” says Dr Nelson. © Britton Jacob-Schram HOLD THE LINE: the University of Miami’s Dr Nelson Ehrhardt warns the audience against thinking a high density of billfish automatically means high abundance. A ban on exporting sailfish, said the Executive Director of INCOPESCA, Carlos Villalobos, will be considered, especially in terms of what types of Costa Rican markets could benefit from the prohibition. “Some of these ideas I have been discussing with other people in the government — to see what kind of legislation is inside the government,” said Mr Villalobos. “In general, I don’t see too much of a problem to take a specific solution like prohibiting vela (sailfish, or pez vela) to the US. “But, I think what I want to do is develop a long-term approach.” By a longer-term approach, Mr Villalobos wants to take into consideration all species of interest, “not just dorado, but sharks and even tuna, which is something we need to have a consensus with other countries on. If we don’t have that, it’s going to be hard to give sustainability to the fisheries”. Factors such as how many marinas the country will soon have, what their contribution will be to the central government and how an institute like INCOPESCA can regulate commercial fishing fleets would need to be considered under a policy-specific approach. “If we can guarantee these commercial fishermen they can fish in certain areas and at certain times and sell vela in the country, we might be forced to support them with new ideas in terms of how to market this species in the country,” he said, adding possible markets would include the country’s hospitals, jails and institutional markets such as primary and secondary school programs which feed poor students. “These might be interesting markets for pez vela and they wouldn’t be impacted by a prohibition to export,” he said. © Britton Jacob-Schram PRESIDENTIAL SEAT: President of the Club Amateur de Pesca, Alberto Laurencich. Whether or not the country’s fisheries’ authority is ready sign such an undertaking is hard to say. “I think that it’s going to be a very tight vote and the chances of the board passing something like that right now, I think, are about 50-50,” he told. The Beach Times. “We’re going to be doing some lobbying and getting more members of the sport fishing sector involved…. We were also very pleased to see that the representative from Golfito (Jorge Barrantes of the commercial fishing sector) supports the no exportation policy.” The sport fishing sector, irritated with slack laws and unenforced regulations has been coming down hard on INCOPESCA to overhaul fishing legislation in the past year. Yet, INCOPESCA further inflamed the country’s sport fishers after it approved an increase in their by-catch — fish which are caught unintentionally, and which are not part of a target catch of tuna or mahi-mahi. Legislation used to allow for only eight per cent of by-catch to be landed, yet commercial fishermen are currently allowed to bring to the docks or “land” 15 per cent of their by-catch — moreover, some commercial fleets say the figure should be further increased during certain months. After exportation sailfish is most often used, says Dr Nelson, in smoked fish dips and spreads, with the United States being its biggest consumer. © Britton Jacob-Schram SUSTAINABLE TALKS: the President of the Southern Zone’s Asociacion de Pesca Turistica Costarricense, Donald McGuinness (at right) steals a moment of INCOPESCA Executive Director, Carlos Villalobos’ time “We’re trying to hurt the market,” admitted Dr Nelson. “If we could persuade American to not eat billfish, it eliminates the market at that end and results in less incentive to import,” he says, pointing to current campaigns, such as the health threats of consuming too much mercury, to discourage the public from eating billfish. “The situation is that you have about 150 million hooks hanging there day and night from the Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean vessels — plus all the Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Panamanian, and Costa Rican fleets,” said Dr Nelson Ehrhardt, a Marine Biology and Fisheries professor with the University of Miami, who is spearheading a billfish research program with the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). “Simply, [commercial longliners] have wiped all the main resources that live longer than the mahi-mahi, which is a highly targeted species,” continued Dr Ehrhardt who gave a presentation to the audience, showing trends in the local and Central American pelagic fisheries. According to Dr Ehrhardt, mahi-mahi, or dorado as it’s known in Spanish, can live up to four years, but gets to commercial size at about 18 months. “So, there appears to be plenty, but the international fleets which have entered the Eastern Pacific to exploit the mahi-mahi have left the local Costa Rican fleets without mahi-mahi.” Then what is there left to catch? he asks. “You have sailfish and sharks — and that is what the commercial fleets are now bringing on.”