Armando Paiva grew up fishing in Piura, Peru, like his father and grandfather. Full of vibrant marine life and commercially important fish like anchoveta, the first five nautical miles off Peru’s coast cover a vast, biodiverse area important to artisanal fishers, who provide 80% of the fish that feeds Peru’s population. But much can change in a generation.
Fishing vessels now lower weighted nets close to the coast, unselectively scooping up fish and risking damage to the seafloor in the process. While sometimes the catch is destined for Peruvian plates, other times it is bound for processing plants, where the fish are ground into fishmeal and shipped to foreign countries as feed for livestock and farmed fish.
Now Paiva is a board member of the El Toril Artisanal Fishermen’s Union in Piura, and his career involves not only fishing but advocating on behalf of artisanal fishers in his community and building alliances with others across the country. Their goal: strengthen Peru’s General Fisheries Law to preserve their livelihoods, communities, and the health of the ocean. Their opposition: an industrial fishing industry with deep pockets and equally deep political ties. Yet, thanks to the resolve of Peru’s artisanal fishers and Oceana’s legal support, the tide has finally turned.
Before artisanal fishers, Oceana, and other allies took their proposal to Peru’s Congress, other attempts had already been made to rewrite or revamp the General Fisheries Law to better protect artisanal fishing communities and the country’s oceans, but this one seemed best timed and positioned for success.
Officials ushered the artisanal fishing leaders into Congress’ auditorium to witness the final vote. While the fishers sat in the balcony, the president of Congress saluted them for coming. After Congress members debated, the time to vote had come.
The vote was unanimous: The protections passed, with those against abstaining altogether.
For many of the artisanal fishers, this victory seemed too good to be true. For years, their voices had been drowned out.
“For me, the law is important because it vindicates ancestral rights for artisanal fishers. We have regained control of the five miles of the biodiversity of that zone,” says Juan Moina, regional coordinator and former president of an artisanal fishing federation in Peru’s Arequipa region. “The unity of the leaders at a national level has obtained results…and we have managed to achieve better living conditions for artisanal fishers.”
The law supports fishing that is “carried out with respect for nature,” Paiva told reporters, “…and to carry [it] out as an artisan does: with selective nets, respecting the fishing zones, the natural banks, the reproduction seasons of the resources and the closed seasons.”
With the new law in place, any vessel that has more than 32.6 metric tons of whole capacity — that is, an industrial vessel — must fish outside the five miles, no exceptions. Any mechanized purse seiner, no matter the size, is prohibited within three nautical miles.
As directed by the law, Peru’s fishing authority will approve a list of the allowable fishing gear safe for ocean habitat throughout the coastal zone. Partnering with Oceana, artisanal fishing leaders are drafting bylaws so the protections can be practically implemented across the country.
This victory not only marks a milestone for Peru’s fishing communities and seas, but for artisanal fishers around the world who are mobilizing to defend their livelihoods and their oceans from the threats they face every day. In Brazil, 150 artisanal fishing leaders drafted a bill proposal to modernize the country’s fisheries policy. In the Philippines, fisherwomen are building a coalition to speak up to the challenges they face. In Mexico, Oceana is partnering with the fishing community of El Cuyo in Yucatan to create a no-take zone to conserve marine ecosystems and local lobster fishing livelihoods.
As Wilfredo Suárez Morales, the co-coordinator for a sustainable artisanal fishing network in Peru’s provinces of Huacho and Huaral, puts it, “If we, the artisanal fishers, work together, thinking of future generations, I’m sure that we will all win, and we will have marine resources and a stable economy.”