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Fisheries Research 91 (2008) 151–159
Inland fisheries of the Mayan Zone in Quintana Roo, Mexico: Using
a combined approach to fishery assessment for data-sparse fisheries
A. Minerva Arce-Ibarra a,∗ , Anthony T. Charles b
a
El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Department of Management of Aquatic Resources, Av. Centenario km 5.5 s/n,
Chetumal, Q.R., C.P. 77090, Mexico
b Saint Mary’s University, Management Science/Environmental Studies, Halifax, N.S. B3H3C3, Canada
Received 29 April 2007; received in revised form 13 November 2007; accepted 15 November 2007
Abstract
In Southern Mexico and Central America, inland fisheries form part of the livelihood portfolio of an as-yet unknown number of rural communities.
This paper reports on the first comprehensive study of such fisheries located in common property lands (ejidos) of the Mayan Zone in Quintana
Roo, Mexico. Given the “data-sparse” nature of these fisheries, with a lack of data available on their current status and on participation levels, a
fishery assessment approach was used which included methods from both the natural and social sciences, with a focus on survey methods applied to
fishery users, water, fish and creel surveys. Moreover, local knowledge of community residents complemented scientific knowledge in a substantial
part of the research. The results, from 48 fishing sites (four with sub-saline waters, the remainder freshwater) indicated (1) a resource base of
multi-specific nature with a total of 18 bony fish species in the study area, (2) artisanal (small-scale) fisheries, with very basic technology (notably
hand-lines) utilized primarily through barefoot fishing along the shores, or with the aid of rafts and canoes, (3) seasonal fishing, primarily during
the dry season (February to May), due to greater accessibility of the sites in those periods, but also related to the end of work on major local
livelihoods, (4) both indigenous (Mayan) and non-indigenous fishers, of ages ranging from teenage to senior adults, for most of whom the major
occupation was slash-and-burn agriculture, and (5) a mainly male-oriented fishery, but with some women involved in five out of nine ejidos studied.
While the key motivation of fishers was subsistence, the study found, for the first time in this form of fishery, that recreation was also a significant
goal of many participants. In terms of methodology, the study demonstrated the importance of cross-validating the accuracy of information from
informants interviewed in the type of social surveys used here. This combined assessment approach proved effective in providing new information
on these previously under-studied fisheries, and may be useful in similar data-sparse situations elsewhere.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Data-sparse fisheries; Subsistence fisheries; Artisanal fisheries; Recreational fisheries; Fishery assessment; Survey methods; Maya people; Yucatan
peninsula
1. Introduction
In the Yucatan peninsula of southern Mexico, the karstic limestone nature of the land has produced a network of underground
rivers, sinkholes (“cenotes”) and associated water bodies that
provide the only sources of freshwater in the region. Recent
scholarly literature has also indicated that some of these water
bodies are used for fishing by local people (Estrada-Lugo, 2005),
although most past research in the area has overlooked the
importance of these aquatic resources, due to a focus primar-
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 983 835 04 40x4401;
fax: +52 983 835 04 54.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (A.M. Arce-Ibarra).
0165-7836/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fishres.2007.11.015
ily on agricultural and forestry systems (e.g., Jorgenson, 1993;
Hostetler, 1996).
The present paper reports on research to better understand the
freshwater fishes, the corresponding small-scale fisheries, and
their role as part of the livelihood portfolio of an as-yet unknown
number of rural communities in the Yucatan peninsula—which
forms a key part of the homeland of the Mayan people, who have
been living here (and elsewhere in Southern Mexico and Central
America) for the last three millennia (Toledo et al., 2001).
The fact that, to date, the freshwater fisheries of the Yucatan
peninsula have been little studied has produced a ‘vicious circle’
such that in Quintana Roo (one of the states of the Yucatan
peninsula of Mexico), inland fisheries are not recognized by
governments as among the primary human activities, and hence
there are no data collected regarding the annual catches, the
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species caught, the resource users, nor the frequency and the
seasonality of the activity. This is compounded by the fact that
the water bodies used for fishing are located in remote areas of
common property holdings locally known as “ejidos”, within
highly marginalized areas (INEGI, 2000). For these reasons,
the fisheries in question are considered, from a fishery science
perspective, to be “data-sparse fisheries” (Arce-Ibarra, 2007).
This research focuses particularly on assessment approaches
suitable for such data-sparse situations. Given that (a) the gaps
in knowledge of Quintana Roo’s inland fisheries encompass
a combination of socioeconomic, biological and management
aspects, (b) there is a lack of ‘hard data’ as sources of statistical information, and (c) the fishing sites are located in remote
areas, this research adopted a combined approach to fishery
assessment, with the use of methods from both the social and
the natural sciences, together with the use of local people’s
knowledge.
This approach seems best able to address the gaps in knowledge of local fisheries, which in turn will benefit governmental
agencies dealing with the management of resources at a regional
level, together with the local communities, in which those with
appropriate rights (the “ejidatarios”) own the land in common
with one another (see articles 9th and 12th of the Mexican Agrarian Law (Ley Agraria) at DOF, 1992, 1993). This paper reports
on a freshwater fishery assessment undertaken in the Mayan
Zone of Quintana Roo. In particular, the assessment examined:
(a) the natural resource base used for fishing; (b) the resource
users, including gender aspects; (c) the underlying motivations
involved in pursuing fishing; and (d) the fishing methods and
seasonality of fishing. The results of this form of multi-faceted
assessment are drawn upon to produce insights that may be useful in similar data-sparse situations elsewhere in the world. The
paper is organized as follows: Section 2 describes the methods used, Section 3 presents the research results and Section 4
presents a discussion of the results.
2. Methods
2.1. Study area
This study was undertaken in Quintana Roo state, located
on the Mexican Caribbean, and specifically within a number
of common holdings (called ejidos) located in the “municipio”
of Felipe Carrillo Puerto (Fig. 1). The geographical setting of
Fig. 1. Study Area. Quintana Roo state with its eight “municipios”: The Mayan Zone comprises “municipios” numbers 2 (José Marı́a Morelos) and 3 (Felipe Carrillo
Puerto). Shaded areas represent the common property holdings or ejidos.
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the study was the tropical rainforest, located within a karstic
landscape, wherein there are several interspersed water bodies.
This is a region in which three seasons can be observed annually: “dry” (February to May), “rainy” (June to October) and
“north winds” (November to February)—although these overlap
to some degree.
2.2. Approach
This study forms part of a larger project the interdisciplinarity
of which has been fully explained elsewhere (Arce-Ibarra and
Gastelú-Martı́nez, in press). The whole research approach was
based on the use of a common language among the participant
fields of knowledge, represented by higher-level concepts used
among the social and natural sciences. In the current study the
involved fields of knowledge were ecology, limnology, fisheries
science, development studies and anthropology. In addition, ethnoecology (or local people’s knowledge, after Toledo, 1992)
complemented the scientific knowledge in a substantial part of
the overall research. Nevertheless, although our study combined
methods from several fields of knowledge, it relied primarily on
survey methods, which were used in household, water, biological
and creel surveys.
As previous authors who undertook research in the study
area had demonstrated that not all local people linked to fishing
would be willing to participate in this type of study (Rojasgarcı́a, personal communication), a purposive (or qualitative)
rather than a probabilistic (or quantitative) design was selected
for the survey (de Vaus, 1999). Moreover, a literature review
indicated that the “snow ball” technique would be appropriate
to use in this type of situation. The latter technique encompassed
the following procedure: during the survey, local authorities
were first contacted and, once they had granted consent to
undertake the research, they provided the names of people who
were locally acknowledged as “very good at fishing” (“muy
buenos para la pesca”). That first set of people subsequently
provided new names of those considered “very good at fishing” as well as some who engaged in fishing but were viewed
as less skilled at the practice. In every community visited, the
social survey stopped once either of the following two conditions
occurred: (a) whenever, after the sixth person interviewed, new
people provided virtually no additional information on fishing,
or (b) whenever 10 days of field work had elapsed in the same
ejido.
2.3. Field studies
Twelve ejidos were contacted from January 14 to September
14, 2004, and authorities in nine of these ejidos granted consent
to undertake the study on their lands. These nine ejidos could
be categorized as primarily indigenous (five), non-indigenous
(three) and mixed indigenous and non-indigenous (one). Each
ejido includes one or more communities; the research encompassed 15 communities from a total of 19 in the study area.
The indigenous people in the region are Yucatec Mayan speakers, and in general the Mayan people in the communities of the
studied ejidos primarily use the Mayan language to commu-
153
nicate amongst themselves (while non-indigenous people use
Spanish).
A total of 107 inhabitants were invited to take part in the
study, through an interview and/or as participants in fishing trips
at their traditional fishing sites. From the 107 people who were
invited to participate, 79 inhabitants (75.2%) accepted the invitation. Twelve of them participated exclusively on fishing trips
and 67 participated either in interviews or in both fishing trips
and interviews.
Two types of interviews were completed, one using structured
questionnaires (n = 58), completed using face-to-face interviews
of both closed and open-ended forms, and the other type using
open formats (n = 9). Of the interviews, 52 structured ones were
completed in Spanish and the remaining 15 were carried out in
Mayan. Two native Mayan speakers were the translators between
Spanish and Maya during the survey. Besides interviews, the
research team undertook participatory research and accompanied people on several fishing trips (Chambers, 1997; Campbell,
2001). Moreover, in order to build rapport, the research team also
participated in diverse festivals and rituals in three indigenous
ejidos.
To determine the resource base used in local fisheries, the
catch of each individual was weighed and the species composition of the catch recorded (i.e., a creel survey was carried out).
Also, independent biological and water surveys were undertaken
by the research team during the study period. Moreover, previous unpublished research on both creel and biological surveys
undertaken in the area by the first co-author from 1998 to 2001
were reviewed to back up current results. All the captured fish
species were identified either in situ or in the laboratory, accordingly, following the scientific guides of Schmitter-Soto (1998).
Observation was also used to record the methods and techniques
used for fishing, as well as other daily aspects of community
organization to pursue local productive activities and festivals.
Given that in the study area, there were no current formal
or centralized fisheries management regulations in place, and in
order to preserve the confidentiality and privacy of the people
who granted consent to be interviewed, the present study uses
pseudonyms for the ejidos, the communities and the fishing sites
studied.
2.4. Data analysis
Collected information from the survey was systematized
using a codebook and compiled into a matrix by cases (interviewees) and variables (representing the topics covered by the
research objectives). Data derived from interviews and observational records were cross-validated with as many sources of
information as possible derived from the same research or from
literature reviews (Bernard, 1995).
To estimate the number of fishery participants, given that
there was no previous data on this, each interviewee was asked
about the number of users in their community. These results were
pooled by ejido and are presented only as a range, with the minimum and maximum values of users per ejido. Non-parametric
tests were used to further analyse the data. In particular, we
used an exact test of independence (as is required for small,
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sparse, unbalanced or tied data found in contingency tables—see
Agresti, 1992; Mehta and Patel, 1997) to test the null hypothesis that the frequency of pursuing fishing was independent of
the ejido to which an individual belongs (i.e., that there was no
association between the frequency of pursuing fishing (rows)
and the specific ejido from which individuals came (columns)).
Both column and row data were obtained during the interview
when people were classified according to both the name of their
ejido and their frequency of fishing (see Agresti, 2002). Moreover, a second exact test of independence was performed to test
the hypothesis that the opinion on a “good catch” range (rows)
was independent of the specific ejido from which participants
came (columns). Both analyses were performed using, in each
case, a doubly ordered row by column (R × C) contingency table
with α = 0.05 in Cytel Studio 8 software. In contingency tables,
exact tests compute exact P-values based on the permutational
distribution of the test statistic (Mehta and Patel, 1997).
Given the nature of our study design (purposive and qualitative), a note on statistical inference is relevant here. According
to Ramsey and Schafer (2002), drawing statistical conclusions
depends upon how the data were collected. As made clear in previous paragraphs, our data were not collected through a random
procedure and therefore, extension of the results (inference) to
any population or to a larger group of people would be speculative. However, the results of this and of any other observational
study, including the use of contingency tables, are valid for the
criteria defined at the outset, i.e., primarily for people skilled at
fishing, and more specifically, for the group of people contained
in the study.
3. Results
3.1. The natural resource base used for fishing
With respect to fish species supporting local fisheries,
these were represented by 18 bony fish species belonging to
seven families (Cichlidae, Eleotridae, Poeciliidae, Megalopidae,
Characidae, Pimelodidae and Synbranchidae). The fish species,
50% of them being cichlids, included target species, by-catch
species, and species used as bait (Table 1). Other incidental fauna
included turtles and occasionally, crustaceans.
In respect to the aquatic ecosystems recorded as being used
for fishing, there were 48 recorded sites within nine ejidos. In
only four out of 48 cases, water was recorded as subsaline (from
2.5 to 4.0 ppt) whereas the remaining sites were classified as
freshwater (<2.5 ppt).
The number of water bodies recorded within each surveyed
ejido varied from 0 (ejido 1) to 27 (ejido 7) which ordering,
in respect to the number of water bodies, was used in the statistical analyses of the contingency tables. In the remaining
two ejidos it was not possible to visit the corresponding water
bodies due to the arrival of the rainy season. From both observational records and interviews, it was ascertained that people
from ejido 1 pursued fishing in a remote federal (state property)
area.
Except in five water bodies in which fishing was based
upon a single species, fisheries were multi-specific in nature.
Table 1
List of bony fish species used as resource base in local fisheries
Species
Target
Petenia splendida
Cichlasoma synspillum
C. urophthalmus
C. salvini
C. friedrichsthali
C. robertsoni
Archocentrus octofasciatus
Megalops atlanticus
Gobiomorus dormitor
Thorichthys meeki
Gambusia yucatana
G. sexradiata
Poecilia mexicana
P. orri
Astianax aeneus
Rhamdia guatemalensis
Ophisternon aenigmaticum
Belonesox belizanus
X
X
X
X
X
By-catch
Bait
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Source: Fieldwork from this study and unpublished data from previous research
by Arce-Ibarra (2000); Arce-Ibarra and Estrada-Lugo (2000); and Elı́asGutiérrez and Arce-Ibarra (2002).
Among 47 users of multi-specific fisheries, 91.5% of interviewees responded that they had a preferred fish to target, whereas
the remaining people responded they had not. From the subsample of those with a preferred fish to target (n = 43), 76.7%
stated their preferred fish was the cichlid known in the literature
as “bay snook” and locally as “bocona” (P. splendida). Nonetheless, capturing P. splendida seemed to be far more difficult than
capturing the remaining species because in order to succeed in
capturing it, one needed certain fishing skills as well as live bait
(generally the characid fish A. aeneus).
Differences in fish distribution across water bodies led to
catch species composition also varying widely among the water
bodies, with the most common species being cichlids, including Cichlasoma urophthalmus, followed by P. splendida and C.
synspillum.
The perception or the meaning of a “good catch” (“una buena
pesca”) in a fishing event varied widely among people from different ejidos, ranging from ≤5 to 20 kg per fishing trip. However,
the results of the exact test of independence were not significant,
showing that there was no interaction between catch range (column) and ejidos (row) (P > 0.05, exact Jonckheere-Terpstra test,
1-sided; data in Table 2). In other words, the results can be interpreted as: the perception of what constitutes a good catch is
independent of the ejido, and thus independent of the number of
water bodies used for fishing.
3.2. The resource users
Taking into account both structured and open interviews
(n = 67), 61.2% of interviewees were native to one of the communities located in the ejidos where they were currently living,
whereas 34.3% were immigrants to the region, coming from
several other states of Southern Mexico. The former group of
people was primarily Mayan whereas the immigrants included
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Table 2
Views of what constitutes a “good catch” among fishery users in seven ejidos of
Quintana Roo (n = 57a )
Ejido ID
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Catch range (kg)
≤5
>5–10
>10–15
>15–20
3
2
1
7
5
5
1
2
2
3
4
1
1
4
3
0
2
5
0
0
2
0
1
0
0
0
0
2
Number of fishers selecting each of four catch ranges are shown.
a Not ascertained n = 1.
both non-indigenous people and Mayan people—coming from
the neighbouring state of Yucatan.
The age of interviewees ranged from 14 to 66 years old and
their fishing experience ranged from 1 to 54 years. In general
terms, it was found that the level of experience was positively
correlated with the individual’s age.
With respect to the number of users per ejido, the lower and
upper extremes (based on minimum and maximum values as
estimated by interviewees) were 5–16 users and 145–260 users
in ejidos 2 and 7, respectively.
In respect to major sources of livelihoods among interviewees, 84.5% out of 58 people responded that their major source
of livelihood was slash-and-burn shifting agriculture. It was
observed that most often, interviewees pursued a diversity of
livelihoods including hunting, fishing, honey bee production,
edible gum harvesting and gathering. Thus, in spite of being
practitioners of fishing, interviewees did not acknowledge themselves as “fishers” but only as “campesinos” and as “rural
people”.
What would be the underlying motivations of these rural people for pursuing fishing? From a multiple response question, it
was ascertained that the motivations included: (a) providing food
to the household (subsistence), (b) recreation, and (c) a combination of motivations which included the above two, with or
without the motivation of selling fish (Table 3).
Information collected from the interviews and from observational records during fishing trips provided indications that,
generally speaking, there were two broad categories of users of
the fishery resource, namely (a) regular users and (b) occasional
Table 3
Motivations underlying the pursuit of fishing in seven ejidos of Quintana Roo
(from a multiple response question with n = 57a )
Motivations:
Only subsistence
Only recreational
Only for sale
Subsistence + recreational
Subsistence + for sale
Subsistence + recreational + for sale
Total
a
Not ascertained n = 1.
Frequency (%)
43.9
10.5
0
29.8
7.0
8.8
100
155
users. The former encompassed those considered most skilled at
fishing, but also some others who, although not locally acknowledged as “very good at fishing”, nonetheless provided a regular
amount of fish to the household every fishing season. The occasional users included others considered less skilled at fishing;
elders and those “retired” from regular fishing; children and
youth with an interest in fishing, as well as whole families that,
while spending a holiday at the water body, would have some
family members fishing.
3.2.1. Gender issues
At the nine ejidos studied, fishing was clearly a male-oriented
activity. Except in one case, names of women pursuing fishing
were not provided in interviews with authorities or with any
other local people. As a result, only two out of the 67 interviews
were completed with women as fishery users, with whom a total
of three fishing trips were undertaken. These two interviewed
women belonged to the category of “regular user” explained in
preceding paragraphs.
During structured interviews (n = 58), 82.8% of participants
acknowledged that fishing was a male-oriented activity while the
remaining people considered it to be an activity in which women
might or currently do participate. Overall, it was recorded that
women from five out of the nine studied ejidos were users of the
fishery resource.
Generally speaking, fishing sites used by women were not
as muddy and remote as the ones used by men. For example, it
was observed that fishing sites used by women were relatively
close (from a few meters to 1 km) to their households. It was
ascertained that ages of women involved in fishing ranged from
approximately 14 to 49 years.
From a multiple response question, all interviewed people
acknowledged that women pursued a number of fishing-related
activities including cooking fish (99.6%), cleaning-eviscerating
(63.8%), gifting fish to relatives (41.4%), and selling the captured fish (13.8%).
3.3. Fishing methods
Fishing in local fisheries was primarily using hand-lines. The
latter were recorded as being the main fishing gear for all the
respondents (n = 58) from seven ejidos. In all cases, hand-lines
were composed of steel-made hook and nylon monofilament.
Also, some people reported fishing methods which included the
use of both rustic wood-made and steel-made harpoons and one
net—recorded, respectively, in 6.9 and 1.7% of 58 cases. Given
that no structured interviews were undertaken in two ejidos
(numbers 8 and 9), observational data plus five open interviews
allowed us to ascertain that ejido 8 used hand-lines whereas in
ejido 9, hand-lines, harpoon, circular cast nets and trammel nets
were recorded.
Except in ejido 2, fishing with hand-lines was primarily performed walking barefoot near the shores of the water bodies,
in water that reached a depth of roughly mid-way up the users’
body (Fig. 2). Most often, people moved from one fishing spot
to another during a fishing trip.
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Table 4
Frequency of fishing activity for fishery users in seven ejidos of Quintana Roo
Ejido ID
Frequency of fishing (fishing trips)
Occasionally
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
0
0
1
1
1
1
0
Once a
month
0
1
1
6
0
1
0
Twice a
month
4
3
2
4
1
0
2
Once a
week
0
0
1
1
5
2
4
Twice a
week
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
Number of responses for each frequency range is shown (n = 58).
Fig. 2. Two Mayan people fishing in a local water body in Quintana Roo, Mexico
(drawing by Ms. Marı́a Magdalena Noriega Guevara).
In contrast, because the fishing area in ejido 2 was acknowledged as a “deep lagoon”, fishing was performed there from
both wood-made and steel-made canoes (approximately 1.5 to
2.5 m in length). In addition, in the shallow flooded areas of the
latter site, fishing was also performed walking barefoot without
the use of any fishing gear but by removing the muddy bottom
instead. The latter, a very unusual technique, was referred to by
local people as “fishing by hand” (pesca a mano). As a result
of the mud removal, a depletion of the dissolved oxygen in the
column of water causes fish to appear at the surface of the water
and people simply collect them by hand.
In three out of seven sites, it was recorded that some people
had the custom of building rafts (1.5–2.5 m in length) made of
dry trunks (e.g., note that a raft is being used in Fig. 2). Thus,
overall 41.4% out of 57 persons used rafts or canoes for fishing
at some point in time. Except in one case in which the steelmade canoe of ejido 5 used an outboard engine, movement of
canoes and rafts was by paddling and by using large wood sticks,
respectively.
Fishing trips were mostly undertaken with one or more
friends or relatives. The research team participated in nine fishing trips in which groups of local users ranged from 3 to 8.
Once people have returned from a fishing trip, the captured fish
may have several fates. If people had captured fish in excess
of a quantity for a family meal (approximately 1–4 kg), they
refrigerated the remaining fish. Alternatively, some people may
either give these fish as gifts to relatives or sell them in the community at a price ranging from 2.00 to 3.20 U.S. dollars per
kilogram.
3.4. Seasonality and timing of fishing
With respect to the seasonality of fishing, almost threequarters (74.7%) of 57 interviewees fished only during 1 or more
months of the dry season—usually from February to early June.
Almost all of the remaining quarter (24.6% of interviewees)
fished in months of both the dry and the rainy (late June to October) seasons. It was observed that at fishing sites fully located
in wetlands where seasonal flooding was marked, the fishing
season halted once the rainy season had started.
Of 58 interviewees, 87.9% responded that they have a preferred day for fishing. In general, the preferred days were the
weekends. In particular, among those with a preferred day for
fishing (n = 51), 84.3% of people responded their preferred day
was Saturday and/or Sunday whereas another 13.7% preferred
Fridays, either apart from (5.9%) or together with (7.8%) Saturdays and Sundays.
The frequency of fishing varied widely. Responses in the
range from “twice a week” to “occasionally” represented
75.9% of the total sample (n = 58). The remaining interviewees
responded that they pursued fishing “when there is time to go”
(22.4%) or “whenever fish abundance is high” (1.7%).
To explore whether there was any relationship between the
frequency of fishing and the number of water bodies used for
fishing, a test of independence was carried out (with the ejidos
ordered according to the corresponding number of water bodies). The results were statistically significant (P < 0.05, exact
Jonckheere-Terpstra test, 1-sided; data in Table 4) showing that
there was indeed a significant interaction, suggesting that the
frequency of fishing was dependent upon the specific ejido and
thus the number of water bodies used for fishing.
Additionally, 57 people were asked the reasons for pursuing
fishing during their selected time period; their responses are
shown in Table 5. (Note that “Holy week” refers to the time at
Easter when fish is a particularly popular food.)
Table 5
Reasons for fishing during the chosen fishing period (from a multiple response
question with n = 57a )
Category (reason):
Water level of the site is low and access is good
There is little or no work to do
Enjoy fishing
Fish abundance is high
Holy week
Water level is low . . . + fish abundance is high
Water level is low . . . + holy week
Water level is low . . . + holy week + enjoy fishing
Water level is low . . . + enjoy fishing
Fish abundance is high + holy week
Holy week + there is little or no work to do
Holy week + enjoy fishing
Total
a
Not ascertained n = 1.
Frequency (%)
38.5
10.5
7.0
5.3
3.5
12.3
10.5
1.8
3.5
3.5
1.8
1.8
100
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The duration of fishing trips varied widely. Generally speaking, at water bodies located near a community (approximately
0–4 km), a fishing trip may last from 1.5 to 4 h, whereas at
places located approximately 5–14 km from the community,
trips may last between 6 and 12 h, and at places further than
14 km away, people typically left the community in the morning,
stayed overnight and returned the next afternoon.
4. Discussion
4.1. The natural resource base
Freshwater fisheries were mostly multi-specific in nature. The
fishery resource base was composed of 18 species in which the
cichlids P. splendida, C. urophthalmus and C. synspillum were
the most often caught. In this respect, our multi-specific fishery
system coincided with other freshwater fisheries from tropical and subtropical environments of Latin America (Gragson,
1992a,b) and Africa (Weyl et al., 2005) which use cichlids as a
key resource base.
Opinions on the meaning of a “good catch” during a fishing trip varied among users but the catch range was statistically
independent of which ejido people came from (with the ejidos
having varying numbers of water bodies that were used for fishing). Therefore the differences in perception of a “good catch”
might be explained in terms of both the inherent productivity
of a water body and the fishing skills of the people. Alternatively, this difference in perception might be understood on the
basis of the varying status of the local fisheries, because whether
they are under-exploited, over-exploited or depleted could affect
what people perceive as a “good catch”. As far as the authors
could ascertain, there have been no studies to explicitly address
the latter possibility, and therefore this is suggested as a topic
for future research on local freshwater fisheries in the Mayan
Zone.
In general terms, the local fisheries studied here could be
classified as artisanal and subsistence fisheries, with use of very
low technology in an activity performed barefoot on the shore
of water bodies and/or with the aid of rafts and canoes. Furthermore, in one ejido, an unusual fishing technique known as
“fishing by hand” was recorded. The latter type of fishing was
first reported by Rojas-Garcı́a (unpublished data) in the Mayan
Zone’s channeled wetlands. The latter technique seemed to be
very efficient (i.e., virtually all enclosed fish would be caught in
the course of the fishing activity), and it resembled that reported
by Gragson (1992b) for rural areas which included the use of
poison by native people from South America.
4.2. Resource users
The fishery resource users were indigenous Maya and
non-indigenous people, with the majority of them being agriculturists, ranging in age from teenagers to senior adults. Although
fishing was primarily a male-oriented activity, this study found
that some women were users of the fishery resource. This extends
the state of knowledge in that, as far as could be ascertained, previous studies on fishing from the area had not reported women
157
even as “occasional” much less “regular” participants in freshwater fishing (see Bello-Baltazar, 2001; Estrada-Lugo, 2005).
To place the fishing role of women in an international context,
a review on freshwater fishing from other forested areas such as
the Amazonia, South America, undertaken by Gragson (1992b)
portrayed fishing as an activity that was performed regardless of
gender. Nonetheless, Gragson (1992a) also reported that in some
native cultures such as the Ciri Khonome Pumé, which inhabits
flooded lands in Venezuela, women engaged in some types of
fishing but not others. According to Gragson (1992a), women
fished at the shallowest and hence safest places compared to
those fished by men. Likewise, our study found that women,
contrary to men, pursued fishing only at the safest fishing
places.
Estimates of the number of fishery participants per ejido,
derived from interviewees, varied widely, even within a given
ejido. This fact was more striking in two of the studied ejidos, for
which the maximum value given in terms of participant numbers
was five times the minimum. This could be partially attributable
to a hesitancy and concern of some individuals in stating the
details of their fishing activity to outsiders. Nonetheless, results
of the interviews, as well as observational records, indicate that
fishing was not an activity practiced by all men in any given
community.
4.3. Fishing as a source of livelihood
Fishing was not recorded as a major source of livelihood
of any user interviewed, and thus appears to be of secondary
importance to local livelihoods. Nevertheless, it is evident that
to fully understand the interplay of livelihood sources, more
detailed studies would be needed, wherein all or the majority of
livelihoods (the diversity of livelihoods) would be assessed and
fishing explicitly compared among them.
4.4. Motivations for fishing
Little attention has been paid to the motivations or rationale behind pursuing fishing in indigenous and rural settings.
Results of this study show that while subsistence was the primary motivation, fishing for recreational purposes was also a
significant motivation. The former aspect is understandable in
terms of previous studies reporting that the Mayan people are
reliant on local resources for livelihoods. On the other hand, the
second motivation – recreation – has received little or no attention as an attribute of artisanal fisheries (as opposed to dedicated
‘sport’/recreational fishing).
The fact that fishing as recreation was important was backed
up by the results relating to the days of the week in which fishing
takes place—because over 80% of the respondents stated their
preferred day for fishing was Saturday and/or Sunday. However,
as no other research had provided data on this topic previously,
it is unknown whether fishing has been always a recreational
activity in the area or whether there has been an evolution toward
this over time, i.e., transitions from strictly subsistence fishing
to a greater role for recreation.
Author's personal copy
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A.M. Arce-Ibarra, A.T. Charles / Fisheries Research 91 (2008) 151–159
Once local conditions of the studied ejidos were known, it
was understandable that fishing serves as a recreational activity too, because options for leisure and recreational activity in
the study area are scarce. Moreover, it was found that during
the dry season, when local air temperatures reached 37–39 C◦ ,
the lakes, lagoons and cenotes located close to communities
were often used for family holiday purposes, particularly during
weekends. This produced further opportunities for recreational
fishing. Thus, fishing activities although not being the major
livelihood of participants, appear to serve both subsistence and
recreational purposes in all studied ejidos.
4.5. Seasonality
Fishing took place primarily during the dry season
(February–May) because (a) once the water level receded, from
December to January, access to the fishing sites improved, and
(b) fish abundance was relatively high in the dry season. This
result is compatible with the situation in other freshwater fisheries in the world, where the “dry” season has been noted as the
preferred time to pursue fishing—e.g., the “cablocos” from the
Brazilian Amazonia (Begossi, 2000), as well as several communities relying on the “varzea” ecosystem from the lower Amazon
(McGrath et al., 1993). Nevertheless, as in this study, fishing was
not the main source of people’s livelihood, and other factors were
also regulating the fishing season. In particular, Bello-Baltazar
(2001) reported that secondary sources of Mayan livelihoods,
including fishing, were pursued whenever major activities on
local agriculture had ended.
4.6. On the methods used in the research
In the present data-sparse situation, the use of methods from
several disciplines, as well as the use of local knowledge,
provided the means for a fairly extensive assessment of this
little-studied fishery.
With respect to the usefulness and adequacy of the survey
methods used (de Vaus, 1999), a literature review on their use
elsewhere provided an understanding that such surveys had been
relied upon by several researchers in other data-sparse situations,
including rural and indigenous settings. For example, the datasparse fisheries of the Amazonian varsea, in Peru, have been
assessed through household surveys and semi-structured interviews by Pinedo et al. (2000). Additionally, the Lake Titicaca
fisheries were studied by Levieil and Orlove (1990) using field
surveys and interviews, and the Mekong River’s pond-based
fisheries, in Lao (PDR), were studied using households surveys
(Hortle and Bush, 2003).
Nevertheless, although a useful method in the case of the
Mayan Zone, the survey methodology as used in the social sciences – and in contrast to biological, water and creel surveys –
produces potential errors derived from surveying people. One of
these concerns informant accuracy (Freeman et al., 1987; Presser
and Traugott, 1992). In particular, this study recorded three
different types of inaccurate responses, which were detected
through both observation and cross-validation of data with others
knowledgeable about fishing.
One inaccuracy related to the number of users of the fishery
resources in two specific ejidos. In particular, two interviewees,
one in an indigenous ejido and another in a non-indigenous one,
and both being local authorities representing the state government, under-reported the number of users of their local water
bodies. In particular, one of these individuals had reported that
only five people used the local fisheries. This was seen to be inaccurate since the remaining interviewees in that ejido reported a
range from 35 to 232 users. Furthermore, the first co-author of
this study stayed in the relevant ejido for several months undertaking fieldwork and saw that there were far more than five
persons using the fishery resource. As a result, the response was
considered to be an “outlier” in the fishery data. The second
informant inaccuracy related to questions about the “good catch
range”. It was similarly found that one of the most skilled at
fishing people under-reported his catch range. Finally, the third
recorded inaccuracy related to the use of harpoons, a fishing
gear which, according to several people, was felt to “harm” the
fish population because it allows the catching of many fish very
quickly from the water. In particular, an interviewee stated he did
not use this gear but other local people had previously acknowledged that harpoon was a gear used by him. Thus, generally
speaking, informant inaccuracy was related to specific sensitive
issues and, in the above cases, it seemed to relate to avoiding a
portrayal of the local fishing activity as one which could negatively affect the fishery resource. Besides the above informant
inaccuracies, no other “outliers” or inaccuracies were detected.
The responses to the remaining questions of the study, it is hoped,
were reasonably accurate.
Another tool equally useful for data-sparse situations is the
local knowledge of those in the communities. In this study, local
people provided both expertise and knowledge on fishery aspects
using their own terms. The translators of the technical meanings of the local knowledge were local native Mayan speakers
and local families who provided meals for the research team. In
general, this study has been compatible with the points raised
by several authors that local or traditional knowledge should
be used in data-sparse situations, both to provide information
and to include the cultural values of local people in the research
(Sallenave, 1994; Johannes, 1998; Loisselle et al., 2000).
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the rural authorities and people
of the Mayan Zone for the support given to this research. This
project benefited from the assistance of Marcelo Jiménez Santos,
Mario Collı́ Colı́ and Andrés Reyna Martı́nez of CONACULTA,
and also of Humberto Bahena Basave, Margarito Tuz Novelo,
Holger Weissenberger, Aristeo Hernández Sánchez and Arsenio Xool Ek. This study used the free-trial of Cytel Studio 8
software from http://www.cytel.com. This manuscript benefited
from the constructive criticism and comments of two anonymous reviewers. This study is part of the PhD program of the
first author which was funded by scholarships from CONACyT (55572/179364), SEP, 204-4-19383; SEyC-Quintana Roo;
COQCYT Quintana Roo, and by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to A.T.
Author's personal copy
A.M. Arce-Ibarra, A.T. Charles / Fisheries Research 91 (2008) 151–159
Charles. The research was funded by Fondos Mixtos of CONACyT and the Government of Quintana Roo state through project
13047.
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