Fishermen evaluating PescaData in the field - El Rosario, B.C.
COBI
Your data at the moment: PescaData and mobile technology
Fishermen's meeting for the improvement of PescaData- El Rosario, B.C.
COBI
Testing PescaData with lobster fishermen - El Rosario, B.C.
COBI
Use of PescaData by S.C.P.P. Langosteros de Caribe S.C. de R.L.
Erik Xicum
Fishermen using PescaData on Natividad Island
Elba López
In developing countries such as Mexico, there are areas of opportunity for citizen science to play an important role in resource management. In small-scale fisheries, product landing sites are often widely distributed and with a high number of operators. In these situations, participatory methods of digitized data collection can be very useful. Thus, they play an important role in obtaining fishery-generated information and facilitate the information collection process.
To this end, in 2020 COBI created the digital platform PescaData. A mobile application where the productive sector can register their fishing data using digital logs, encouraging fisheries to have a systematic record of their catches and contribute to the knowledge of the species. Also, PescaData facilitates the connection with fishing communities from different geographic locations, through the sale of products and sharing solutions related to fishing. Finally, PescaData is a free application, where the information recorded is available only to the user, promoting digital sovereignty.
- Strengthening the digital capacities of fishermen and fisherwomen, as well as species identification to facilitate catch data collection.
- Creating awareness in the communities about the importance of collecting data and the usefulness of these data (e.g. observing trends in catches, seasonality and distribution of species).
- Encouraging participatory and transparent processes in data collection.
- The functionality and usefulness of the PescaData platform must be made clear, emphasizing that the information recorded is the property of the users and the sharing of this information can only be done through formal agreements between the interested party and the user.
- There may be resistance from the fishing sector in adopting digital tools, knowledge of the context, patience, follow-up and empathy are required to achieve this goal.
- Support staff and dissemination materials are required to ensure that as many people within the fisheries sector as possible use the digital platform.
- The best way to encourage the use and add users to PescaData, or any other digital platform, is through the experience of using it, and that the user shares his or her experience with others.
- The use of digital platforms such as PescaData helps to have a transparent collaboration between the productive sector and the government sector, academia and civil society organizations.