First Fieldwork Impressions

 

Local fishers of Zorritos preparing for a fishing trip. They have no pier so they use small boats to transport water, ice, gear and the crew to larger offshore boats.

It's been two weeks since our team arrived in Zorritos. And we wasted no time diving into our work. We started interviewing local fishers about their fishery and the personal and professional challenges they face. But most importantly: our conversations dive deep into their devil ray catches and the potential (socioeconomic) impact future devil ray protection could have on their livelihoods.

To do so, we take them on two imaginary journeys into the future: (1) envisioning fines for every devil ray landing and (2) envisioning fines for every devil ray landing BUT the boats that abstain from landing devil rays receive a financial compensation. For both scenarios, we ask them how their catches would change, how they think the community would respond, how their income would change, how fair and/or easy they feel this scenario is to them and why. Their responses help us to grasp the potential effects of future devil ray protection measures and let us assess the proposals' effectiveness and ethical implications.

So far, we've had insightful discussions with 24 local fishers, who graciously shared their perspectives. Our aim is to engage at least 40 local fishers before concluding our time here. With the momentum we've built, I'm confident we'll achieve this goal in no time and we'll be able to share some of our results soon!