The Challenge
Puerto Verde sits at the mouth of a river that drains a catchment of more than 400,000 people. For two decades, plastic waste and agricultural runoff arriving from upstream had degraded the seagrass meadows that local fishers depend on. Catches were falling, and the municipality had no mandate over the inland sources of the problem.
Local government faced a familiar bind: the pressure was visible on their coastline, but the causes sat outside their jurisdiction.
The Approach
Starting with the fishers
Rather than beginning with policy, the municipality began with a series of open meetings in the four largest fishing neighbourhoods. Fishers mapped where catches had declined and identified the seagrass beds they considered most important. That map became the basis for everything that followed.
Building the co-management agreement
The municipality then negotiated a co-management agreement giving the fisher association formal responsibility for monitoring a 1,200 hectare managed access area, with the municipality providing enforcement support and a small annual operating budget.
We had been told for years that the sea was everyone's responsibility. In practice that meant it was nobody's. The agreement changed that.
Connecting upstream
Working through the regional mayors' association, Puerto Verde brought three upstream municipalities into a shared watershed committee. The committee has since agreed a joint waste management plan and a common set of water quality indicators.
Results
Three years on, seagrass cover in the managed access area has stabilised for the first time since monitoring began. Fisher incomes in participating neighbourhoods have risen, and the watershed committee has been formally recognised in regional planning law.
What Made It Work
- The municipality gave fishers real authority, not just consultation.
- Enforcement was designed alongside the community rather than imposed on it.
- Upstream partners were brought in as equals, not as the source of blame.
- A small but predictable annual budget mattered more than a large one-off grant.
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