The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Galapagos Islands' seafood system from consumers' perspectives.

The COVID-19 pandemic's early stages severely impacted global fisheries, particularly areas heavily reliant on imported food and tourism like the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. To contain the spread of the virus, a full lockdown was implemented. However, the collapse of the tourism industry precipitated the worst economic crisis in the history of this multiple-use marine protected area. This paper examines the impact of the pandemic's early stages on consumption patterns and seafood security in the Galapagos from consumers' perspective, drawing on online surveys conducted during the lockdown. Our findings revealed pre-existing seafood insecurity across the archipelago, further exacerbated by the pandemic on the least-populated island. Nevertheless, the seafood system displayed moderated resilience to the pandemic's socioeconomic disruptions. A variety of adaptive responses were adopted by Galapagos residents to cope with the lockdown. Consumers modified their seafood consumption habits, while fishers adapted their harvesting and marketing strategies. Such adaptive responses were shaped by the unique socioeconomic characteristics of each inhabited island and the ability of seafood suppliers to shift from a tourism- and export-oriented to a resident- and domestic-oriented market. This transition has created novel opportunities to foster a systemic transformation of the Galapagos seafood system to enhance its resilience against future crises caused by new pandemics, climate change, or other natural and anthropogenic drivers of change.

Fishing during the "new normality": social and economic changes in Galapagos small-scale fisheries due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The crisis caused by COVID-19 has profoundly affected human activities around the globe, and the Galapagos Islands are no exception. The impacts on this archipelago include the impairment of tourism and the loss of linkages with the Ecuadorian mainland, which has greatly impacted the local economy. The collapse of the local economy jeopardized livelihoods and food security, given that many impacts affected the food supply chain. During the crisis, the artisanal fishers of the Galapagos showed a high capacity to adapt to the diminishing demand for fish caused by the drastic drop in tourism. We observed that fishers developed strategies and initiatives by shifting roles, from being mainly tourism-oriented providers to becoming local-household food suppliers. This new role of fishers has triggered an important shift in the perception of fishers and fisheries in Galapagos by the local community. The community shifted from perceiving fisheries as a sector opposed to conservation and in conflict with the tourism sector to perceiving fisheries as the protagonist sector, which was securing fresh, high-quality protein for the human community. This study explores the socio-economic impacts and adaptations of COVID-19 on Galapagos' artisanal fisheries based on a mixed methods approach, including the analysis of fisheries datasets, interviews, surveys, and participant observation conducted during and after the lockdown. We illustrate the adaptive mechanisms developed by the sector and explore the changes, including societal perceptions regarding small-scale fisheries in the Galapagos. The research proposes strategies to enhance the Galapagos' economic recovery based on behaviors and traits shown by fishers which are considered potential assets to build-up resilience. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40152-022-00268-z.

The Evolution of Polycentric Governance in the Galapagos Small-Scale Fishing Sector.

Addressing the multiple anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic factors affecting small-scale fisheries requires collaboration from diverse regions, geographical scales, and administrative levels in order to prevent a potential misfit between governance systems and the socio-ecological problems they address. While connecting actors and stakeholders is challenging, as they often hold opposing perceptions and goals, unveiling the network configurations of governance systems remains one effective way to explore collaborative alliances in light of the diverse drivers of change present in small-scale fishery systems. This study employed descriptive statistics, exponential random graph models (ERGMs), and qualitative data analysis to explore preferential attachments of new nodes to well-positioned nodes within the Galapagos small-scale fishery governance system network and the propensity of cross-sectoral reciprocity and cross-sectoral open triads formation in the network. Our findings identified significant players and network configurations that might be essential in the collaboration diffusion and robustness of the Galapagos small-scale fishery sector governance system.

Human and climatic drivers affect spatial fishing patterns in a multiple-use marine protected area: The Galapagos Marine Reserve.

Assessments of the effectiveness of marine protected areas (MPAs) usually assume that fishing patterns change exclusively due to the implementation of an MPA. This assumption increases the risk of erroneous conclusions in assessing marine zoning, and consequently counter-productive management actions. Accordingly, it is important to understand how fishers respond to a combination of the implementation of no-take zones, and various climatic and human drivers of change. Those adaptive responses could influence the interpretation of assessment of no-take zone effectiveness, yet few studies have examined these aspects. Indeed, such analysis is often unfeasible in developing countries, due to the dominance of data-poor fisheries, which precludes full examination of the social-ecological outcomes of MPAs. In the Galapagos Marine Reserve (Ecuador), however, the availability of long-term spatially explicit fishery monitoring data (1997-2011) for the spiny lobster fishery allows such an analysis. Accordingly, we evaluated how the spatiotemporal allocation of fishing effort in this multiple-use MPA was affected by the interaction of diverse climatic and human drivers, before and after implementation of no-take zones. Geographic information system modelling techniques were used in combination with boosted regression models to identify how these drivers influenced fishers' behavior. Our results show that the boom-and-bust exploitation of the sea cucumber fishery and the global financial crisis 2007-09, rather than no-take zone implementation, were the most important drivers affecting the distribution of fishing effort across the archipelago. Both drivers triggered substantial macro-scale changes in fishing effort dynamics, which in turn altered the micro-scale dynamics of fishing patterns. Fishers' adaptive responses were identified, and their management implications analyzed. This leads to recommendations for more effective marine and fishery management in the Galapagos, based on improved assessment of the effectiveness of no-take zones.

A revised strategy for the monitoring and management of the Galapagos sea cucumber Isostichopus fuscus (Aspidochirotida: Stichopodidae)

The brown sea cucumber fishery is active in the Galapagos Islands since the year 1991 after its collapse in mainland Ecuador. This paper analyzes the Galapagos Sea cucumber fishery over the past decade and the reasons for its management pitfalls and chronic over fishing, and proposes an improved strategy for estimating stock size and harvest potential. Based on the historical distribution of the fishing fleet and past fishery surveys, 15 macrozones were defined; their areas were estimated from the coastline to the 30m isobaths and the numbers of sample replicates per macrozone were calculated for a density estimate precision of ±25%. Overall stock size was calculated by summing over all macrozones and was multiplied by 0.122 to obtain the annual quota. This multiplier was derived by inserting an exploitation rate of E=0.3 and a published natural mortality value of M=0.17 into Cadimas formula, thereby obtaining a more conservative precautionary quota estimate. Pre-fishery stock densities in 2009 were below the legal threshold value and the fishery remained closed. Mean densities were significantly lower in the deeper (>15m) than in the shallower (<15m) stratum, contrary to fishermen expectations. Through an empirical regression of (log) pre-fishery density versus subsequent annual catch for the period 1998-2008 we found that catches of most years greatly exceeded the here proposed quota explaining the collapsed nature of the stock. Rev. Biol. Trop. 60 (2): 539-551. Epub 2012 June 01.

Este artículo analiza la pesquería del pepino de mar en Galápagos, durante la década pasada y se estudian las razones de su difícil manejo y la sobre-explotación crónica. El objetivo principal de este trabajo fue proponer una estrategia mejorada para estimar el tamano poblacional y el potencial de captura. Se definieron 15 macrozonas, y para ello se tomo en cuenta la distribución histórica de la flota pesquera y los resultados de prospecciones pesqueras pasadas. Las respectivas aéreas fueron estimadas desde la línea de costa hasta la isobata de los 30m. El numero de replicas de muestreo por macrozona fueron calculadas para estimar la densidad poblacional con una precisión del ±25%. El tamano poblacional total fue calculado sumando la densidad poblacional de todas las macrozonas, luego el resultado fue multiplicado por 0.122 para obtener la cuota anual de captura. Este factor de multiplicación fue derivado mediante la fórmula de Cadima, en la cual se considero una tasa de explotación (E) de 0.3 y una tasa de mortalidad natural (M) de 0.17. Estos resultados permitieron obtener una estimación precautoria y más conservadora de la cuota total de captura. La densidad poblacional pre-pesquería en 2009 estuvo por debajo del punto de referencia límite establecido, en consecuencia fue declarada en veda. Las densidades poblacionales promedio fueron significativamente menores a profundidades mayores a los 15m, contrario a lo esperado por los pescadores. A través de una regresión empírica entre el logaritmo de la densidad poblacional pre-pesquería y la subsecuente cuota de captura anual para el periodo 1998-2008, se descubrió que las capturas totales en la mayoría de los años han excedido la cuota de captura propuesta en este articulo, lo que explica el estado actual de este recurso, el cual se encuentra colapsado.

A revised strategy for the monitoring and management of the galapagos sea cucumber Isostichopus fuscus (Aspidochirotida: Stichopodidae).

The brown sea cucumber fishery is active in the Galapagos Islands since the year 1991 after its collapse in mainland Ecuador. This paper analyzes the Galapagos Sea cucumber fishery over the past decade and the reasons for its management pitfalls and chronic over fishing, and proposes an improved strategy for estimating stock size and harvest potential. Based on the historical distribution of the fishing fleet and past fishery surveys, 15 macrozones were defined; their areas were estimated from the coastline to the 30m isobaths and the numbers of sample replicates per macrozone were calculated for a density estimate precision of +/-25%. Overall stock size was calculated by summing over all macrozones and was multiplied by 0.122 to obtain the annual quota. This multiplier was derived by inserting an exploitation rate of E=0.3 and a published natural mortality value of M=0.17 into Cadimas formula, thereby obtaining a more conservative precautionary quota estimate. Pre-fishery stock densities in 2009 were below the legal threshold value and the fishery remained closed. Mean densities were significantly lower in the deeper (>15m) than in the shallower (<15m) stratum, contrary to fishermen expectations. Through an empirical regression of (log) pre-fishery density versus subsequent annual catch for the period 1998-2008 we found that catches of most years greatly exceeded the here proposed quota explaining the collapsed nature of the stock.