Abstract

We integrated fishers’ traditional knowledge and scientific information to assess the vulnerability of the stocks in Dibulla, La Guajira, Colombia. We gathered local information on commercial important fishes in Dibulla, to contribute to a Productivity and Susceptibility Assessment (PSA), an expert opinion-based model that combines information about the productivity of a stock with its susceptibility to fishing activities, pollution, habitat degradation, or other factors. This project sought local expertise to develop a PSA for nearshore species at a small spatial scale, so we can better understand local dynamics, pressures, and vulnerabilities of the stocks. We applied this technique by combining biological data for 11 species with information obtained from fishermen during a series of surveys. We found high susceptibilities for all the species and prioritized three species with a high vulnerability to overfishing, and identified the activities that are negatively impacting small-scale fisheries in the area. While PSA provides only general information on vulnerability and stock status, it can be useful to identify important local differences in stock susceptibility to fishing or other impacts that may be lost when stocks are monitored at a wider scale.

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