Several NGO’s and non profit organizations, including PRETOMA, Widecast and The Leatherback Trust, known collectively as Salvemos Nuestros Mares, have come together to improve marine management in Costa Rica through a series of legal, political and civil actions which will lead all around improvement of our valuable and incredibly bio-diverse marine resources.

Their first action is an online petition calling for a total reform of INCOPESCA. In light of recent accusations of the President of INCOPESCA being involved in illegal shark finning and a new law banning shrimp boats, the timing couldn’t be better. The text of the Petition is as follows:

Do you know what is happening with the marine resources of Costa Rica?

Fisheries mismanagement, commercial interests and overfishing are threatening our marine biodiversity, coastal communities and food security. INCOPESCA, the state agency charged with protecting our marine resources, has given up to this mission and has given priority to the interests of industrial and semi-industrial fishing fleets.

Since 1995 INCOPESCA:

1. Holds in the Board of Directors questioned people.
2. Allows over-exploitation of shrimp and tuna on behalf of industrial and semi-industrial fleets.
3. Abandons artisanal fishermen to their fate.
4. Allows shark finning and illegal downloads (offloading boats of fish).
5. Tolerates fishing in the mouth of rivers.
6. The Board of Directors takes decisions that reflect particular interests over national interests.
7. Hampers and fails to create Marine Areas where policies promote responsible and sustainable fishing.
8. Allows the irregular use of subsidized fuels.
9. Fails to comply with its duty to study the population of commercial species and the sustainability of the estimated resource.
10. Breach its duty to generate reliable statistics on the national fishery resource which is the main basis for evidence-based decision making.

All this has led to an unsustainable national fisheries model that abandons the artisanal fishermen and over-exploits the resource leading us to an irreversible deterioration of our marine wealth.

At the root of these problems there is a fundamental reason, the governing body of fishing in Costa Rica, the Board of Directors from INCOPESCA is controlled by big fishing entrepreneurs (five of nine). Says a legal principle: “one cannot be judge and jury” and INCOPESCA FLAGRANTLY VIOLATES this principle.

This is why:

-We ask the Governing Council the immediate intervention of the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (Incopesca), especially its Board of Directors and Executive Presidency.
-We propose to the Executive power to convene before the Legislative Assembly a Bill to amend Law No. 7384 of “Creation of Incopesca” for the removal of the Board of the organizational structure of the institution.
-We ask the General Comptroller of the Republic, based on the findings of their last two reports (DFOE-PGAA-086-2006 and EC-DFOE-IF-14-2012), to recommend to the Council of Government the intervention and organizational restructuring of Incopesca to remove the system used for the Board.
-Rendering of accounts from MAG (Ministry of Agriculture), directly responsible to INCOPESCA.

WE HAVE MADE PROGRESS AND WE RECOGNIZE THE GREAT EFFORTS OF CURRENT EXECUTIVE POWER, BUT NOW IS THE TIME TO RECLAIM OUR FISHERIES RESOURCES BY INTERVENING WITH THE COSTA RICA FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE INSTITUTE.

Visit this website to sign the petition to reform Costa Rica marine management, and be part of the positive change: www.salvemosnuestrosmares.com