Upcycling Invasive Fish Species: An
Interview with Mike Mitchell, CEO and CoFounder of Pezzy Pets
JE SSI CA HANJUL , JUL Y 1 8 2 0 2 3
An alien species is whisked
away to a new environment,
gradually taking up the entire
area and its resources and
leaving native species with
next to nothing. The alien
species continue to thrive
while the native ones start to
die. In other words, a foreign
invasion where the possibility
for the invaders to win is
high; something happening
today. Fortunately, there is a
way to combat – or even
better – benefit, from these
invasive species. Pezzy Pets, a
company that turns invasive fish species into pet treats, does just this. In an exclusive
interview with Earth.Org, Mike Mitchell, the co-founder of Pezzy Pets, discusses the
importance of tackling invasive species and how the company upcycles invasive fish
through a sustainable production process.
—
As a straightforward explanation, invasive species are species that have relocated due to climate
change or have been transported, either accidentally or purposely by humans, outside their native
range to a completely different area. These species eventually harm native biodiversity,
ecosystems, and habitats in that new area, to the point where the extinction of a native organism,
plant, or animal can occur.
Along with ecological harm, invasive species can have negative economic repercussions, like
obstructing necessary infrastructure. The zebra mussel, which is native to southeastern Europe
but invasive to Canada and the United States, is an example as it can block off pipes. Invasive
species also threaten human health. The Asian tiger mosquito—native to Southeast Asia but is
now found in North America—for example, carries vast, human-susceptible diseases with it.
In particular, aquatic invasive species like certain fish such as the armoured catfish, the lionfish,
and the silver carp pose a significant threat to aquatic indigenous species by outcompeting and
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rendering habitats unliveable for the indigenous ones. This propels a rapid population increase
for these invasive fish species, especially since many of them do not have natural predators in
their new conditions.
These innocent, aquatic native organisms are inevitably left battling a losing fight; a fight that
they did not even begin but, instead, was started by others. Despite the above-stated seeming
rather bleak, optimism paves its way to the forefront as there are solutions to help these
indigenous species keep their homes and, most importantly, preserve their survival from the
invaders.
And it merely takes “one bite at a time” (literally) to help restore the environment from invasive
species, specifically invasive fish species, as Mike Mitchell, co-founder of Pezzy Pets, highlights
in an interview with Earth.Org.
The Threats of Invasive Fish Species
With a background in the seafood industry, Mitchell was working with fishermen when he was
faced with the threats that invasive fish species pose.
“I used to live in Mexico and I was working with small-scale fishermen. That’s when I came
across a couple invasive species of fish that were causing a lot of environmental and economic
issues,” Mitchell explained. The issues he witnessed prompted him to take action on three
highly-invasive and destructive species: The armoured catfish, the lionfish, and the silver carp.
Front-line invaders, the armoured catfish is a renowned invasive species that does not shy away
from wreaking havoc on local, established aquatic ecosystems. Protected by a coat of bony
plates, resilient in producing offspring, and able to survive well past 20 hours out of the
water due to their large vascularized, or vessel-filled, stomach, these fish can withstand and
adapt to various environmental conditions.
Initially native to the tropical areas of the Amazon, years of accidental and intentional releasing
of the armoured catfish has allowed the species to spread to numerous Mexican and American
states, where it poses a substantial danger to indigenous ecosystems.
Instances of such dangers include burrowing into shorelines so that the fish can breed,
subsequently creating erosion and altering local conditions which may increase the risk of
harmful algae blooms. While the armoured catfish eats algae from an array of surfaces to sustain
itself, the species have been witnessed invading the spaces of manatees in Florida, US, by
disturbing and eating algae off the backs of these Floridan natives, potentially leading to
behavioural changes of the innocent animals.
Mexicans have even given the armoured catfish another name, pez diablo, in other words, the
Mexican devil fish, because of the significant economic threat it poses from disrupting fisheries
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and hindering fishermen from fishing for income to devastating existing properties in aquatic
locations.
A fisherman returns
with captured
armoured catfish (also
known as the Mexican
devil fish or pez
diablo). Photo: Sara
Escobar, Tortugas al
Viento.
Aside from the
armoured catfish,
two other invasive
species, the lionfish
and the silver carp,
equally pose massive
hazards when found
in new
environments.
Known for its
showstopping appearance in aquariums and the wild, the lionfish is not so impressive after
realising just how detrimental this species can be. Despite their native home being in the IndoPacific region, years of speculated, societal dumping has allowed these fish to travel and flourish
in the Atlantic regions, particularly US waters, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
Combined with their nonselective, greedy eating habits and their lack of natural predators, the
lionfish can negatively influence the lives of other organisms. For example, a lionfish will eat
anything in its line of sight from crustaceans to invertebrates to fish, eventually generating a
population reduction of important organisms and dismantling the stability of indigenous
ecosystems. From a commercial viewpoint, the lionfish can greatly affect fisheries as this
invasive species preys on various commercial fish like the snapper and the grouper.
Though not as physically striking as the lionfish or armed like the armoured catfish, the silver
carp causes just as much damage outside its native range. After a series of imports by the hands
of society for the purpose of controlling phytoplankton and algae in aquatic facilities in the last
century, the silver carp, once native to Eastern Asia, has taken over the US rivers and lakes, and
swiftly made its way north to the Great Lakes in Canada.
With a silver carp able to grow approximately 100 pounds (45kg), this fish carries a massive load
of athleticism and an insatiable appetite for plankton, enabling them to jump over barriers and
dams and consume 40% of their body weight in a day, respectively.
3
To put things into perspective, a 100-pound silver carp can eat as much as 40 pounds (18kg) of
plankton per day. Large consumption of plankton means less food for native mussels and fish
such as the gizzard shad, resulting in the invasive silver carp outcompeting local biodiversity.
Paired with the silver carp’s ability to reproduce rapidly, laying hundreds of thousands of eggs
each time, this invasive fish can promptly overpopulate a new environment, leaving native
species with no chance of fighting back.
Because of all the ecological and economic problems that the armoured catfish, the lionfish, and
the silver carp present, Mitchell decided to take action, partnering up with a chef friend. He
began conducting workshops on invasive fish species and talking to fishing communities, while
his friend used these fish in cooking demonstrations.
Co-founder and CEO of Pezzy Pets, Mike Mitchell
conducts workshops using the armoured catfish in
Tabasco, Mexico.
The workshops and demonstrations
broadened into selling fillets of these
invasive fish at restaurants in collaboration
with fishermen. After some time, Mitchell
branched out from restaurant sales to create
an even bigger impact.
“I saw an opportunity to really scale our
impact […]. We can create a lot of great
environmental and social impact in the
communities that we work in,” he said.
These were the humble beginnings that
ultimately led to the birth of Mitchell’s company, Pezzy Pets.
Pezzy Pets Takes on a Unique Spin With Invasives
Pezzy Pets combines several eco-friendly criteria to make the company truly eco-friendly by
upcycling invasive fish, utilising sustainable packaging and directing its sales to the pet
industry—an industry that has its own negative impacts on the environment.
The term “upcycling” refers to reusing materials in a way to increase their value, exactly what
Mitchell’s company does with the troublesome armoured catfish, lionfish, and silver carp. Pezzy
Pets transforms these invasive fish species into healthy consumption for pets, dogs and cats alike,
in the form of “single and limited ingredient” treats, as described on the company’s website.
4
Deciding on what specific species to use comes
with a myriad of factors. Mitchell explained that
“every fish or invasive species, in general, has its
own unique set of challenges.” Not only does the
fish have to be invasive, but it also has to be
appetising and appealing from a supply and chain
standpoint.
A fisherman is in the process of capturing an armoured
catfish using nets in Tabasco, Mexico. Photo: Sara
Escobar, Tortugas al Viento.
Although not as widely consumed, the armoured
catfish hits all the factors Mitchell was looking for,
with the species being found in large volumes and
able to breathe atmospheric oxygen; therefore, it
does not immediately require to be put on ice as the
fish remains well alive after capture.
industrial scale.”
“It makes it very attractive to […] produce at
When it pertains to dealing with live fish and successfully upcycling it to pet treats, Mitchell had
to consider the “infrastructure limitations” faced during the company’s manufacturing process in
Mexico.
Working with roughly 100 fishermen from different supply chains and teaming with partners
allowed Pezzy Pets to avoid the “complicating” factors of economics, supply chain
infrastructure, and additional costs of certain materials such as ice.
Following the armoured catfish, Pezzy Pets widened their product selection to the silver carp and
the lionfish.
“We decided to branch into the lionfish, and then silver carp again for slightly different reasons,
but it was just the stars kind of aligned in terms of the processing infrastructure and supply chain,
also the volumes that we can do.”
As for the silver carp, this species of fish does not have the ability to survive out of the water for
an extended period of time; however, the company’s partnership that works with fishermen is
able to catch the carp in nets and process the fish in their facility.
The lionfish, on the other hand, is “pretty unique”—as Mitchell put it—because of the venomous
spines found on the grooves of its spine, necessitating these fish to be individually caught
through scuba diving and spearfishing in Southern Mexico. Even though the lionfish does have
venomous spines, the species is still safe to eat and handle when done so properly as the fleshy,
edible portion itself is free from toxins.
5
These invasive fish are then upcycled. They are filleted, broken down, and hydrated into thin
strips in the company’s FDA-regulated facilities, and sent to San Francisco, US, to finalise and
package the products in 100% compostable packaging. When all is done and ready, the final
products, the pet treats, are sold in stores for dogs and cats to snack on.
Caring About Invasive Species Is Just as Important
What started as workshops and demonstrations steadily turned into a green company producing
treats for companion animals—a company that Mitchell was “very adamant” about having “a
very strong social and environmental impact.”
The co-founder’s adamancy and all of the hard work have paid off for both the company – which
earned itself a Certified B Corporation label – and the environment.
Today, the works of Pezzy Pets have removed around 100 tonnes of armoured catfish in
Southern Mexico. An estimated 882 to 1,763 pounds (400 to 500 kg) of lionfish have been
removed as well, yielding a positive impact on the environment and assisting with mitigating the
invasive species problem.
“I think that’s the biggest thing is we’ve seen some native species able to rebound after removing
so much [of the devil fish],” Mitchell said.
Mitchell holds a poster about the armoured
catfish (pez diablo) for a presentation at a
sustainability conference in Mexico.
With invasive
species increasing worldwide, it is
critical to address the problem and
implement solutions to put an end to
destructive, invasive biological
spreading; otherwise, native
biodiversity will perish.
And while the problem with invasive
species does not seem to be on the
frontline of environmental issues,
especially when the present world is
already dealing with more pressing
matters like climate change and
pollution, invasive species accelerate
the existing damage on the planet.
6
“I think, oftentimes, the case of invasive species is connected to a lot of the […] environmental
problems that we face,” Mitchell explains, adding that problems such as climate change and
pollution fuel the spread of invasive organisms. “[…] Climate change is often a main driver of
invasives or pollution.”
The combination of climate change and invasive species creates ample opportunities for
indigenous ecosystems and organisms to be affected negatively. For instance, climate change
causes ice to melt, bringing on easier routes and better access for invasive species to spread.
On top of climate change, pollution favours invasive species over native ones. A study shows
that high levels of aquatic pollution (in this case, the pollution was copper) led to a decline of
more than 40% of indigenous species. On the contrary, invasive species populations were
unaffected.
Now, there is no denying that invasive species do one thing and one thing only: They invade and
destroy. This makes it paramount to take action and preserve native biodiversity, whether it is by
taking action as a business like Pezzy Pets or simply as a consumer.
Whilst it may seem hard to make any positive impact with substantial problems like climate
change, consumers, Mitchell believes, can take a “very tangible direct impact” on the invasive
species problem.
“Not necessarily that one is more important [than] the other but […] as compared to something
like climate change, which is a lot broader scale, sometimes it’s hard to feel or see your impact,”
Mitchell said. “With invasive species, you can eat it right and make an impact. So we like to say
you’re helping restore the environment, one bite at a time because every bite, every treat, give[s]
a tangible impact.”
In the end, caring about invasive species is just as important as caring about any other
environmental problems. Companies like Pezzy Pets demonstrate this. The company is open to
expanding its selection of invasive species to upcycle and produce more eco-friendly products
for companion animals.
On an individual level, tackling the invasive species problem really starts with consumers and
their choices like choosing to give your dog or cat a treat made from an armoured catfish, a
lionfish or a silver carp.
“[Consumers] can have a real direct impact with their choices,” Mitchell concluded. “And not
just with invasive species but with all their consumer choices.”
7
Meet the Social Enterprise
Transforming One Guatemalan
Community
CELINA LIMA
FEBRUARY 5, 2018
Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods, yet 45 million acres of forest are
destroyed every year — the equivalent of 50 soccer fields per minute.
The rural inhabitants of these at-risk forests often live on less than $1.25 a day and have no claims
or rights to the ancestral lands they call home. Economic desperation drives many of these
communities to clear forests for subsistence agriculture, cut down trees for firewood, and sell
illegally-harvested timber at prices far below market value, warn NGOs such as the Rainforest
Alliance. The paltry income generated from forest destruction is not enough to break the cycle of
poverty, and these communities ultimately lose out on the resources necessary for their survival.
Suzanne and Mario Babarczy witnessed these circumstances firsthand after moving from Ohio to
Guatemala with their three children in 1993. Wanting to make a difference, the couple founded
Hearts In Action, a faith-based nonprofit focused on ecological education and job skills in the Mayan
biosphere. Five years later, the family moved from urban Guatemala City to the rural Petén region to
1
open what they dubbed the Jungle School, where they became even more familiar with the
challenges that accompany widespread forest destruction.
The Petén loses a staggering amount of trees each year — the majority of which are illegally
harvested by lumber companies on preserved land. Increasingly, the region is losing its people,
too, as a lack of work and educational opportunities sends young people elsewhere.
Students at the Hearts In Action Jungle School.
In an effort to address these issues, the Babarczys set up shop in an abandoned orphanage and
began educating 15 local children. Over the past 20 years, the school has grown to 400 students, 40
full-time employees, and onsite carpentry and gardening workshops. In 2016, the family took on a
new challenge: leveraging a grant for their carpentry school into a social enterprise that could create
jobs for the community and counter the effects of deforestation.
At first, they used with what they had — stockpiles of local hardwoods, onsite carpenters with over
10 years of experience, and relationships with local designers — to make and sell bathroom boxes
to nearby hotels. But the fledgling enterprise they called Itza Wood would soon open doors for even
greater impact in the region.
2
The Hearts In Action carpentry school now serves as a workshop for a new social enterprise.
A new social enterprise takes root
The Babarczys’ daughter, Eliza, grew up working at Hearts In Action before moving back to the
United States for university. When the family founded Itza Wood, Eliza left her new career in event
planning to help make the dream a reality.
In the two years since returning to the Petén, Eliza helped grow Itza Wood from a struggling offshoot
of the carpentry school into a flourishing business with clients like San Martin, a bakery with 45
locations in Guatemala and the United States. Its office and kitchen product lines landed the brand
an EmpredeGT award, and Eliza was named one of the top 30 entrepreneurs in Guatemala last year.
3
Itza Wood creates custom kitchen, office, and bathroom products from sustainable sources and
gives marginalized workers access to the international market.
The Itza Wood model carries a host of benefits for Petén communities. Its offer of jobs and practical
training lets young people stay in the area, and a systemized supply chain based around sustainable
and local hardwood works to counteract illegal logging. Seed money from Mission Taiwan and
Guatemala’s Ministry of Economy helped the company join the Export Commission, an organization
that connects Guatemalan companies to international markets, paving the way for future growth.
“We knew we wanted to create a social enterprise based on the triple bottom line, because we care
about the community and the jungle,” Eliza says of Itza Wood. “We seek to be a bridge into
international markets by using the natural resources inherent in our community and crafting a welldesigned, high-quality product.”
Itza Wood provides jobs and practical training that allow more young people to stay in their
community.
“With our community, for our community”
Led by Eliza and her mom, Suzanne, the Itza Wood team hopes to begin exporting their products to
the US and Europe this year. Building on their early success, they’re looking to develop custom
product lines for restaurants, hotels, and other corporate buyers, while continuing to raise awareness
about the harmful effects of deforestation in Guatemala.
4
“I never thought I’d be an entrepreneur,” Eliza confesses. “It happened because we needed to see a
change in our community, and no one else was going to do it. We’re creating and selling our
products and learning about business along the way. ”
Creating a sustainable supply chain for hardwood helps to counteract illegal logging in
Guatemala’s Petén region.
Eliza is part of a growing number of young entrepreneurs on a mission. A 2014 study found that 94
percent of millennials want to use their skills to benefit a cause, and millennials have already founded
twice as many businesses as baby boomers. With a penchant for causes and a tolerance for risk, young
social entrepreneurs like Eliza take a new approach to business that values people and the planet as
much as profit.
“While my margins are important, they are really more of a yardstick to measure how much impact I
am making,” Eliza says. “My ultimate goal is to create more jobs for my community and plant more
trees to protect my home. If I make more profits, I can have more impact.”
The young entrepreneur says a solid connection to the local community will ensure the company
only has greater impact as it grows. “Real-world problems require innovative solutions that integrate
local capital and stakeholder buy-in,” she says. “You can’t just give people things without investing in
them and working with them to build a future. Everything we’ve accomplished has been with our
community, for our community — that’s the real way to create sustainable change.”
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Images courtesy of Sarah Mueller on behalf of Itza Wood
Celina Lima
Celina Lima is an MBA student specializing in Social Enterprise and Finance at the Middlebury Institute of
International Studies. With 10 years of experience as a freelance translator, as well as a small business owner,
Celina is passionate about social justice and the power of business as a force for social change. She has lived
and worked on three continents and has been a Fair Trade Fellow, a Hult prize finalist and a consultant for over
20 small social enterprises.
6
Viewpoint
Marine Conservation 2.0
By Steve Rocliffe
Stanford Social Innovation Review
Spring 2017
Copyright ? 2017 by Leland Stanford Jr. University
All Rights Reserved
Stanford Social Innovation Review
www.ssir.org
Email: editor@ssir.org
Stanford Social Innovation Review / Spring 2017
Marine Conservation 2.0
Saving the oceans requires the buy-in of coastal communities
directly affected by environmental protections.
By Steve Rocliffe
Illustration by Blair Kelly
O
lder residents of Andavadoaka,
a coastal village in southwest
Madagascar, can recall a time
when fishing trips would yield
boats filled to the brim with the day’s catch.
Back then, the coral reefs hosted a dizzying array of sea creatures. Sharks were so
numerous that villagers were forbidden from
swimming during their feeding times at dawn
and dusk.
Today, this underwater bounty is
much diminished, and what little remains
faces an increasingly uncertain future.
Foreign fishing fleets are steadily emptying
Madagascar’s waters of marine life. Soils
loosened by decades of deforestation are
running off into the sea, smothering the
vulnerable reefs of an island so rich in
unique plant and animal life that it is known
as the eighth continent. And by unleashing
a torrent of increasingly extreme weather
events, climate change is dealing further
blows to this fragile ecosystem.
Some of the hardest hit by this ecological crisis are the Vezo, seminomadic
traditional fishers who live along Madagascar’s arid southwest coast. Among these
master mariners, seafood is the sole
source of protein in almost every meal—
and a meal is far from guaranteed. Their
average income, also provided by the sea, is
less than $2 per day.
But this is not a story of acquiescence.
With their very survival under threat, the
Vezo are battling, village by village, to
return their seas to abundance. And their
effort is turning conventional thinking
about marine conservation on its head.
I first heard about the Vezo’s fight six
years ago while researching effective marine
conservation initiatives at the University of
York in the United Kingdom. There I learned
about marine protected areas (MPAs), parts
of the oceans where potentially damaging
activities such as fishing are limited or
banned. In principle, MPAs are a dazzlingly
simple and effective idea: You close an area
to fishing, and, a few years later, you have
more, bigger fish, some of which swim out
of the closed zone and into fishing nets
beyond. Even better, since bigger fish are
more fertile, you also have more larvae
venturing beyond protected boundaries,
replenishing local fishing grounds year
after year. For these reasons, MPAs are often touted as a win-win approach, benefiting
people and nature alike. They have become
especially popular with policymakers rushing
to meet international obligations to protect 10
percent of the world’s oceans by 2020.
With more than 17,000 sites worldwide, MPAs certainly have scale, but what
about their impact? Here the waters become
muddied. Despite the impressive numbers,
most MPAs are failing. Existing in name only,
these paper parks lack the financing, management, and enforcement they need to deliver
the promised biological and social benefits.
All too often, MPAs are imposed upon
fishing communities without adequate
consultation or compensation. But for
many of the hundreds of millions of people
living around tropical coasts who need to
fish to feed their families, accessing their
fishing grounds is simply too important to
sacrifice. This often places conservation at
loggerheads with the needs of coastal communities, paradoxically the very people who
depend most on its success and who could be
its champions.
I found the Vezo’s story so compelling
because they had figured out a solution to
the broken models of marine conservation.
With the support of the British social enterprise Blue Ventures (BV), they introduced
their own form of community-centered
fisheries management that both improved
their livelihoods and conserved valuable
marine resources for the future.
After I obtained funding for my doctoral research, I jumped
on a plane to the Western
Indian Ocean in 2011 and
began working with BV and
the Vezo.
Under local
management
BV launched its work with
Vezo communities in 2003,
with an acclaimed conservation tourism program in
Andavadoaka. The initiative trains paying volunteers
in tropical marine research
and conservation, collecting much-needed scientific
data, while also providing reliable income to the
community. Together with
59
Stanford Social Innovation Review / Spring 2017
Steve Rocliffe is research and learning manager at Blue
Ventures, a social enterprise that works with coastal communities to rebuild tropical fisheries.
donor funding, profits from the ecotourism
operations are used to fund conservation
efforts.
The tourism model also gives BV something that most conservation organizations
lack: a sustained, long-term presence within
a community. The trust and understanding
that this permanence built enabled us to see
that many villagers saw conservation as a
threat, a way of preventing them from fishing. To overcome this perception, we realized that we needed a clear demonstration
of the potential benefits of conservation.
For this, we turned to an unlikely eightlegged ally. In this region of Madagascar,
octopuses provide vital food and income
for local communities. With the majority of
catches sold for export to Europe, octopuses
offer one of the region’s only sources of cash
income. Yet octopus stocks were struggling.
As concern mounted, we staged a radical
intervention, joining forces with villagers to
build support for a temporary communityenforced ban on octopus fishing in a small
reef. Because octopuses grow fast and are
more fertile the larger they get, a closure for
just a few months promised to boost stocks.
The plan worked. When the ban was
lifted, fishers harvested far larger octopuses,
in far greater numbers. Catches improved so
dramatically that nearby villages began to
follow suit with their own closures. Spurred
on by these successes, Andavadoaka and
two dozen neighboring communities rallied together to establish an ambitious new
conservation initiative: a locally managed
marine area (LMMA) of 640 square kilometers in which destructive fishing techniques
such as poisoning and beach seining have
been banned, and reserves permanently offlimits to all fishing have been established.
They called this new area Velondriake, a
Vezo word meaning “to live with the sea.”
Velondriake was Madagascar’s first LMMA—
a novel creation managed entirely by communities, for communities, that incorporated
measures rejected as unworkable by these
same communities a few years previously.
By 2016, more than 250 of these shortterm fishery closures had taken place,
not only for octopus but also for other
community-harvested species such as mud
crab and spiny lobster. The result: In the
month after closures were lifted at 36 sites,
villagers caught more than 700 percent more
octopus than in the month before the closures were imposed.
The growth in LMMAs has been no less
impressive. Velondriake’s success has inspired coastal communities across Madagascar to establish their own initiatives. This
emergent network of more than 65 LMMAs
now covers more than 11 percent of Madagascar’s seabed, and in 2014 President Hery
Rajaonarimampiesona pledged to triple his
country’s MPA coverage with a focus on
community-centered approaches. In little
more than a decade, this movement has
become a dominant force in the country’s
conservation, and it is continuing to expand
with a scale and ambition that’s unparalleled
among countries abutting the Indian Ocean.
Scaling and sustaining
conservation
This simple, replicable, grassroots model is
at the heart of BV’s mission. By anchoring
efforts in meaningful economic incentives,
it engages rather than alienates coastal communities, catalyzing the development of
more ambitious, durable marine conservation initiatives. It builds trust and engagement at the local level, and underpins other
work in aquaculture, community health, and
coastal carbon markets.
Having demonstrated the model’s
effectiveness in Madagascar, BV is now striving for impact at scale, aiming to reach three
million people across the world’s tropical
coastal regions by 2020. With core support
from the Skoll Foundation, which awarded
BV its prize for social entrepreneurship
in 2015, and partners such as the Mulago
Foundation, we are working to take this
model to new communities, new countries,
and new waters. At this early stage, we are
already collaborating with nearly 20 partners in nine countries. In each case, we are
working to establish temporary closures on
the harvesting of certain fast-growing species
to boost catches and incomes and, hopefully,
to inspire and sustain community-led marine
conservation initiatives.
What have we learned so far on this
journey? Three things stand out.
First, seeing is believing. Many of the
LMMAs—and the fishery closures that preceded them—have been kick-started by peerto-peer learning exchanges, in which men
and women from different communities are
brought together to share knowledge and
experience in community-based fisheries
management. As conservationists, we are
merely facilitating this dialogue; the real
change happens on the beaches and landing
sites of the communities we support.   
Second, the formation of grassroots
learning networks that share experience and
best practices can drive and sustain massive
improvement. Once each community returns
home and implements new approaches, it
can call on a broad network of like-minded
communities and organizations for support.
Together they can amplify their voices in
ways they could not on their own. We are
now seeing a new wave of policy efforts to
improve and streamline legal processes and
mechanisms for securing access rights for
artisanal fisheries in the Indian Ocean.
Third, keep it simple. International
replication has a checkered history in conservation and development, and things only
get more difficult as the complexity of the
intervention increases. Initially at least,
we have found that targeting new partners
working in similar contexts to ours is more
successful. For this reason, our near-term
focus is on species that we know, primarily
in the Indian Ocean. Once we have demonstrated replicability across international
borders, we will be better placed to exp