Abstract

The lobster fishery is the most valuable fishery in the Caribbean and in Colombia is developed mainly in the San Andres archipelago. In the last decade, the annual quota varied between 600 to 750mt (whole). The fishery is in full exploitation and its Management oriented to reduce effort considering the uncertainty of the population models and illegal fishing. The amount of fishing trips/year was of 192 between 2000-2004, reduced to 118 between 2005-2007 due to a close season and other regulations. In 2008, only 60 trips (50% less), reduction attributed to the combine effects of: Boundary dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua; increase in the gas price from $US1.93gl to 2.73gl between 2007 and 2008; 17% re-avaluation of the Colombian peso against the US dollar; and 35% fall in the international markets only in 2008, and resulted in the inactivity of half of the fleet. Indeed, the economic equilibrium of a single boat shifted from 12.9mt/year in the 2007/2008 season to 21.2tm/year in the following. We discuss the implications of this crisis on users, including companies, ship-owners, fishermen, shipping agents, institutions and others indirectly affected. The potential for recovery of this resource due to diminishing in fishing effort across the region could be jeopardized because of the increase in illegal fishing given their peculiarities of non-compliance with fishery regulations, thus comparative taken advantages against the responsible fishers.

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