Social-Ecological System of La Parguera
Social-Ecological System of La Parguera
Figure 45. Landings of parrotfishes, groupers and snappers per year (data from DNER-FRL). Figure 43. Landings of conch per year (data from DNER-FRL).
Figure 44. Landings of dorado per year (data from DNER-FRL).
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Discussion: Despite the integrity of the data, information from a number of regional (Caribbean) sources indicate that there is an overall trend in the reduction of fish catches—and a decline in the health of the stocks—for spiny lobster (Ehrhardt et al. 2011), queen conch (Appeldoorn et al. 2011), groupers (Sadovy 1994), and some species of deep-water snappers (Heileman 2011). The landing data is somewhat consistent with the field observations of Pittman et al. (2010) that reported a decrease in mean grouper biomass. However, data for snappers show variability in mean biomass over the observed period, with the exception of the important commercial species in La Parguera O. chrysurus (yellowtail snapper), which showed a pattern of decrease in mean biomass (Pittman et al. 2010). Fishers are also aware that there is a decline in the stocks. For the south coast of the island, 47.8% of the fishers indicate that the situation is worse than in previous years, pointing at pollution (29.2%) and habitat destruction (12%) as the main culprits. They also indicated other causes (30%), with the most common being: fishery regulations (37%), weather conditions (35.7), and climate change (22.9) (Matos-Caraballo and Agar 2010). However, the Entangled Communities report indicates that most fishers in Lajas agree that the condition of the stocks is worse than in previous years (74.2%), due to the high number of recreational vessels in the area impacting the habitats (38.6%, overfishing (30.6%), the increased number of fishers (17.7%), and habitat destruction (11.3%) among others (Griffith et al. 2007). In general, Puerto Rican fishers indicated that there is low abundance of fish (53%), and that the coral reefs are in dire straits (49.8%) (Griffith et al. 2007). Data for Guánica and Guayanilla, included here in the analysis of the landings, indicates the same trend, with Guánica fishers indicating a poor status of the resources (56.3%), mostly due to overfishing (28%), while the Guayanilla fishers thought that the situation was worse (80%), mostly due to pollution (45%), habitat destruction (20%), and the regulations (20%) among others (Griffith et al. 2007).
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