New regulations are
being established for sportfishing and other
aquatic recreational activities in the Parque
Nacional Bahia de Loreto, BCS. In meetings held
with David Maldonado Diaz of the Park staff
earlier this month, Baja Life was informed about
a new organizational program designed to register
and monitor all marine vessels offering tourist
services in the Bay of Loreto National Park.
The Park office will be contacting the owners
of those vessels participating in commercial
and recreational aquatic activities, providing
their boats with Park registration numbers and
further information on the new requirements.
Those requirements include registration of both
the vessels and their employees, the filing
of departure forms and of sportfishing reports
for each excursion.
The registration of locally owned pangas, sportfishing
boats, dive boats, kayaks and sailboats will
help Maldonado reach the Park's goal of monitoring
the number of recreational vessels working within
its marine boundaries and utilizing its resources.
With that information, the National Park will
be better able to study the impacts of recreational
aquatic activities on its protected island and
marine ecosystems. The increased use of island
and mainland beaches, favored sportfishing and
popular diving locations by visitors to the
Park needs to be supervised. Park staff would
ultimately like that to be on a mostly self-regulating
level and they will be working with local tourist
service providers to reach that goal.
There will be new signs posted at the harbors
in Loreto and in Puerto Escondido designating
those areas as tourist activity checkpoints.
These signs will ask sportfisherman to register
their entrance into the Park with Park officials
and the Port Captain. They will also ask sportfisherman
to abide by their fishing licenses and to not
exceed limits. The checkpoint signs will remind
fisherman to fill out their sportfishing reports
and to deposit them in the boxes at the checkpoint
after each fishing trip.
Those forms will be available from vessel captains
and the Park office.
Each day on VHF channel 16 there will be a 15
second announcement, requesting boat operators
to turn to channel 14 for an important message
from SEMARNAP and the Port Captain. That message,
read both in Spanish and English will state:
"Because the
Bay of Loreto and the surrounding islands are
a Natural Protected area, the following rules
must be respected:
- Everybody must
register their entrance into the Park through
the administration of the Marine Park and
the Port captain.
- Do not bring
any animals or plants onto the islands.
NO PETS PLEASE!
- Do not leave
any garbage behind, nor light camp fires
on any of the islands.
- Abide by your
fishing license and do not exceed your limit."
The sportfishing
report will have spaces for the fisherman's
name, fishing license number, time on the water
and a section for recording data on the type
and amount of fish caught. It will also include
a space to describe the area where the fish
were caught and on the reverse side of the
report there will be a sportfishing zone map
for the entire Bay of Loreto.
If you would like more information on this
new Bay of Loreto National Park program please
contact:
Melissa
Paxton,
Director of Environmental Affairs,
Baja Life Magazine
melpax@hotmail.com
>> Top
>>
Back to Home
