PARQUE NACIONAL CABO PULMO: PARTICIPACIÓN PARA SU CONSERVACIÓN

En 2011 se realizó un estudio de capacidad de carga (buceo libre y autónomo) en Cabo Pulmo a cargo de la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur (UABCS), financiado por Amigos para la Conservación de Cabo Pulmo (ACCP) y apoyado por los Prestadores Turísticos (PST). Dicho estudio estableció las bases del Programa de Uso Público y sus resultados se discutieron y modificaron con base en la experiencia de todos los actores. En 2014 se instaló el Subconsejo de Uso Público, el cual está conformado por la CONANP, los PST, Niparajá y la UABCS. Dentro de las reglas acordadas está un sistema de avisos en donde los PST informan a CONANP sobre cada uno de sus viajes por medio del radio VHF, en tiempo real, registrando el número de turistas y los sitios que visitarán. En las reuniones del Subconsejo de Uso Público también se definió el número máximo de embarcaciones de manera simultánea por sitio, con la finalidad de que no se presente una saturación de embarcaciones, así como otros acuerdos relacionados con el manejo de las actividades turísticas. Durante 2016 realizamos la evaluación del cumplimiento de las reglas; de los 55 acuerdos el 90 % eran implementados y respetados por los PST. La participación activa de los prestadores desde el origen de las reglas ha garantizado el amplio cumplimiento de las mismas.

Since the consolidation of the Public Use Program (PUP), which requires that the TSP have accredited guides and captains; CONANP with support from Niparajá have given these accreditation courses. During 2016, 95 guides and 35 captains were trained; in 2017, 64 guides and 36 captains were trained; in 2018 a total of 60 guides and 16 captains were trained; and in 2019, 97 guides and 39 captains were trained. As of 2019, and with the aim of providing tourism service providers with more and better knowledge of the ecosystem, three different courses were developed: a basic course for captains who are presenting themselves for the first time; a basic course for new guides; and an advance course for guides and captains who have been working for more than a year at the NPA. The advance course considers the presentation of talks given by experts on topics not considered as shark biology, whale watching or the population dynamics of fish. The training courses are valid for one year for guides. After one year, an evaluation is applied; if it is successful the new guides can participate in the advanced course, otherwise they will have to participate in the basic. The courses for captains are not valid, only the basic course is mandatory.

The rapid growth of tourism has caused negative impacts on reef ecosystems, caused mainly by inexperienced or careless divers. Damage has been observed since 2011. Later, in 2015 it was found that the sites of greater tourist use had more fragmented corals mainly of the genus Pocillopora. In 2016, CONANP and NIPARAJÁ participated in a workshop to exchange experiences on monitoring protocols of tourism use in Protected Natural Areas, where a standardized methodology was proposed to carry out impact monitoring and underwater monitoring. The impact assessment is carried out using the “Protocol for Monitoring Impacts and Surveillance of Snorkel and Autonomous Diving Activities for Marine Protected Areas” which has been used to know the impacts generated by recreational diving in sites with reef ecosystems, focusing on the number of contacts each diver makes on the substrate and the number of times corals are broken over time. Since 2017, the National Park personnel have been carrying out underwater monitoring and surveillance of diving groups. At each dive, a diver or tourist is selected and monitored for 10 minutes.