Photo © Fundación Humedales
The Colombian fisheries authority AUNAP is adopting recommendations from the Global Nature Fund and the Fundación Humedales to revise the closed seasons for tiger catfish in order to better protect fish stocks from the effects of climate change. The groundbreaking decision can serve as a model for inland waters worldwide.
Radolfzell, 23.06.2022: The consequences of climate change are being felt all over the world, including on the Río Magdalena, Colombia’s most important river. It provides a livelihood and food source for thousands of people and is the habitat of the tiger catfish – an icon of the region that accounts for 60 percent of the total catch. However, rising temperatures and interference with the natural habitat have decimated the fish stocks in the Río Magdalena: In the last forty years, catfish catches have fallen by more than half to 30,000 tons a year. Poverty,
The result is a threat to food security in the region and ever-increasing pressure on the remaining stocks.
GNF develops solutions for Colombia’s blue lifeline
To counteract this, the Global Nature Fund (GNF), together with the Colombian environmental protection organization Fundación Humedales and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Ursula Merz Foundation, launched a project in November 2020 to protect fish stocks in the Middle Río Magdalena. Advanced observation and monitoring methods for monitoring fish stocks and their reproductive cycles provided a clear result: instead of always spawning at the same time of year as in the past, the spawning times of the tiger catfish now change annually. The Colombian fisheries authority AUNAP has now responded to the development and adopted a new closed season regulation in June 2022, in which it explicitly refers to the GNF project.
Inland fisheries from Colombia to Lake Constance: adapting to climate change
Thies Geertz, the responsible project manager at GNF, welcomes the move: “With its regulation on closed seasons, the Colombian state is living up to its responsibility to make closed seasons more flexible and thus protect the tiger catfish more effectively. This is an important measure for adapting to climate change, as fluctuating temperatures and the changing water flow in the Magdalena mean that the start of the tiger catfish spawning season can no longer be rigidly predicted, as was the case in the old regulations, which have now been updated on the basis of our work.” Fish stocks in German inland waters could also benefit from such a dynamic regulation, Geertz emphasizes: “In view of the consequences of global warming, variable closed seasons are also suitable for transfer to German inland waters such as Lake Constance. Here, too, the consequences of climate change are already being clearly felt and variable closed seasons would be a suitable instrument for protecting fish stocks.”
Find out more about our project on the Río Magdalena
Contact us
Global Nature Fund (GNF) – Radolfzell office
Thies Geertz, Project Manager
Phone: +49 7732 9995 871
E-mail: geertz@globalnature.org