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the harvesting of lobster and conch. A cooperative member claimed that there were as many as 300 fishermen working legally in Banco Chinchorro during lobster season,
of which only 90 were cooperative members.
7.4 Enforcement of Environmental Regulations
The Secretaria De Medio Ambiente, Recursos Naturales y Pesca SEMARNAP is the federal agency responsible for developing and implementing
environmental regulations. A branch of SEMARNAP, Procuraduria Federal de Proteccion al Ambiente PROFEPA, is responsible for the enforcement of
environmental regulations. However, PROFEPA has resource limitations and inadequate enforcement personnel [10 rangers in the entire state of Quintana Roo,
most of which are located in the northern end of the state personal communication, SEMARNAP official, 699]; thus, environmental laws are generally not well enforced
around Mahahual. However, PROFEPA does have enough of a presence that residents are not blatant about breaking environmental regulations.
The continual presence of army soldiers and marines is a deterrent to some crimes such as illegal hunting and turtle collection, but other regulations go virtually
unheeded. For example: some fishermen continued to capture lobster throughout the closed season March through June. During the closed season lobster production
occurs for local consumption, sale to local restaurants, and even sale to market in Chetumal. However, during closed season, capture of lobster is low key, and full-
scale production is not instituted by the cooperatives. When questioned about illegal practices, informants often claimed that subsistence capture of lobsters during the
closed season is tolerated. Key informants also claim that commercial lobster activities are also tolerated as long as they are not blatantly disregarding the law.
Recently a harbormaster has been placed in Mahahual. His duties include enforcing safety regulations i.e. making sure that vessels are equipped with the
required safety gear and closing the port in bad weather events, making sure that vessel operators have the required licenses, training, and registration, and keeping
track of the vessels that are in port. The presence of the harbor master been perceived as a hardship among some fishermen who view him as a limitation to days at sea by
closing the port and believe the fees, licenses, and safety regulations that he enforces are too expensive and time consuming. However, the harbormaster does provide
services such as critical weather information i.e. sea conditions and port closures to the fishermen with radios. Unfortunately, the vast majority of fishermen do not have
radios the only radio that was observed was in a fishing camp at Cayo Centro in Banco Chinchorro.
Since Quintana Roo is the newest state in Mexico, and the Costa Maya is the last frontier of the last state, coastal residents typically view themselves as pioneers.
Many residents enjoy the freedom of being on the frontier. On several occasions it was mentioned to me that residents wouldn’t live in Mahahual if they were the type of
people who liked rules. The Harbor Master and SEMARNAP are viewed as entities that make their lives more complicated by adding more and more rules to choke them,
and are thus generally disliked by residents. In general, ICM strategies that attempt to impose regulations upon the community will not be well received.
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CHAPTER 8 ACTIVITIES IN THE COASTAL ZONE
