Indigenous communities participate in the collective management of consumption fishing in the Tuparro National Natural Park

Cultural, social, economical and political changes in the frontier area with Venezuela have had an impact on the way indigenous communities living in the Tuparro National Natural Park’s buffer zone use and manage natural resources. Therefore, it is important to identify how this changes are affecting the natural resources and livelihoods, especially the subsistence fishing.

The communities of Isla Churuata and Isla Peniel have been fishing for decades in the National Natural Park Tuparro buffer zone. In 2011, the National park began a monitoring programme to collect information regarding the most fished species, the quantity and the weight of the captures, the fishing technique and the extraction zone for each community. In this way it has been possible to understand the use of fish resources by the communities and to establish a management pre-agreement with the community Isla Peniel.

The activities already developed by the national park, along with the interest and motivation of the fishermen themselves in working for the conservation and sound management of natural resources together with the Park, where the framework for the project “Monitoring of subsistence fishing by communities in the Tuparro Biosphere reserve and national park for collective decision making” supported by the UNESCO. The aim of the project is to improve the quality of the information obtained through the monitoring registers and to use it together with the ecological knowledge the fishermen have in management agreements. Since November 2013 the monitoring activities by the communities and the national park have started again with the support of Tropenbos International Colombia.

TBI Colombia’s community monitoring methodology and participative research are being applied to improve the data collection through daily fishing registers and to record the knowledge regarding fish species, from ecological to mythological aspects. From the information obtained so far important conclusions can be drawn regarding the management of the capture areas and the techniques used, and even more it has created a dialogue and improved the relations between the communities and the park.

This pilot initiative has already demonstrated the importance of participative methodologies for the formulation of management agreements and the strengthening of relationships among different actors in the region. The project will soon be replicated in other ten communities in the Park’s buffer zone.
The National Natural Park El Tuparro is located in the Vichada province in the Colombian Orinoquia. It has 548,000 hectares and multiple ethnic groups, which use natural resources for their livelihoods. The communities Isla Churuata and Peniel are close to the Raudal Maypures in the Orinoco River, in the Colombia-Venezuela frontier and the eastern limit of the Park.