CONSERVATION

Our Efforts

During the 2010’s, the BGFA took on much more of a conservation focus than it had in prior years. As the years went by, the members realized that there were not as many fish in the sea as there used to be, so we decided we needed to do something about it. The first initiative was to transition the BGFA’s tournaments from killing all Billfish to releasing them. Over a three-year period, the BGFA successfully transitioned all its tournaments away from bringing billfish to the scale, to mandatory release of Sailfish, Spearfish, White Marlin and Blue Marlin below 250lbs. This release initiative also extended beyond tournaments to recreational fishing, where fishermen across the country rapidly transitioned to releasing Billfish outside of tournaments, rather than killing them.

A second initiative the BGFA took on was to work to ban the use of gill nets in Belize. Gill nets had long been used as a tool to catch inshore species of fish, as well as sharks near the atolls. Fish populations, particularly Snook and Mackerel, had been decimated due to overfishing by gill nets which was impacting sportfishers. The BGFA joined the Coalition for Sustainable Fisheries in 2017, which is a Non-Governmental Organization consisting of other organizations such as Turneffe Atoll Trust, Yellow Dog Conservation Society, Mar Alliance, Belize Fishers Federation and the Belize Tourism Industry Association. The Coalition worked with Oceana to raise $2 million which was used to transition licensed gill net fishers to economic alternatives. In 2020, the Government of Belize banned gill net usage in all of Belize’s marine waters, a massive success for the Coalition and the BGFA We can say that the Coalition worked with Oceana to raise $2 million which were used to transition gill net fishers to economic alternatives.