The Celestún Fishing Refuge Zone will implement an artificial reef project to strengthen marine biodiversity from a sustainable tourism perspective.
The president of the ZRP Committee, Ylmar José Canul Reyes, explained that this project will be beneficial for the community, the fishermen, but above all for the fishing refuge.
“We got a permit from Semarnat to install artificial reefs within the fishing refuge area and the intention is to repopulate the corals, try to make a reef mountain range where there is none, but above all give the fisherman another alternative job that would come being tourism.”
Canul Reyes pointed out that, although they received support from Sepasy, Semarnat, Conamp, and other agencies for the permit procedures, this is an initiative entirely of the Refuge Zone Management Committee, and they paid for the purchase of the artificial reefs.
“It is a pilot project so to speak, we knew we had to invest, it was approximately 90 thousand pesos that we invested in the 50 reefs that we bought, what Conamp gave us right now was a Procoe, which is a support of 200 thousand pesos, to install them, it is for gasoline, formalities and work equipment.”
He commented that this mountain range of reefs will generate an increase in biomass and that fish and other species will make this their home and begin to congregate. He pointed out that this is not something that will have long-term results, but rather in the future. A couple of weeks after these artificial reefs are installed, noticeable changes can already be seen.
“This will work so that the fisherman and divers can take the tourist to see this artificial reef and explain what it is about and its function, while at the same time we conserve; We are sure that it will work very well.”
The installation of these reefs will begin next October 1st and is expected to take approximately two weeks to process; They will keep a log before installation to record the changes that occur over the days.
So far, approximately 15 cooperatives are participating for a total of 100 people. Those interested can join, but they will have to adhere to the Committee’s guidelines, among which surveillance of a certain number of kilometers of the refuge polygon is established.
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