Discussion of Recent Changes in Two Costa Rican Fisheries Management Regimes

Changes in the fisheries management regime in Costa Rica have occurred in the last three years. Here we present and discuss two of these changes and their possible impacts to the country’s small­scale and industrialized fishing fleets. The first was a ban on shrimp trawling within Costa Rican waters in 2013 because of its unacceptable bycatch and damage to fisheries habitats. The second change was a ban in 2014 on purse seining within 60 miles of Costa Rica's coast. The expressed goals of this measure were to encourage the development of Costa Rican fisheries for tunas and other pelagic species using longlines. Other objectives were to provide preferential access to domestic fishers and to implement systems to acquire data on catch and effort, leading eventually to science­based management schemes. These efforts have only recently begun, such that regulatory and institutional mechanisms for implementing them have not fully evolved, and quantitative analyses of the impacts of these measures on resource health and fisheries patterns and economics are not yet available. Regardless, this study will present anecdotal evidence from fishers, researchers, conservationists, and policy makers that indicates how these strategies are being implemented, their challenges, and their possible socio­economic and ecological impacts.