Blue Mood

Problem Statement

In Pucusana beach (Lima, Peru), artisanal boat fishing abounds. This activity is carried out by empirical fishermen with low economic and educational levels, which makes their life very complicated. Many of them catch fish uncontrollably to obtain more fish to sell, without taking into account the reproduction cycles, the minimum fishing size, or future generations.

Target Audience

The project's target is artisanal fishermen from Pucusana beach in Lima.

Proposed Solution

The project's proposed solution is to create a 100 square meter of macroalgae forest in an area near Pucusana beach.

Hub activities

The hub activities are the following:

• The project will be carried out with the macroalga called Macrocystis. This macroalga will be collected during a diving expedition in Pucusana and then transported to the laboratory for in-vitro development.


• After 4-5 months, the algae will grow to a considerable size to be transplanted to the beach.


• As an outcome of the project, this new forest will serve to increase the abundance of fish and shellfish in the area, becoming a type of fish bank and hatchery for this marine ecosystem. In this way, the impact of fishing in this area will be much less than at present and the food chain of this ecosystem will not be affected.


• At the same time, we plan to carry out environmental awareness work with the fishermen of Pucusana to transmit our knowledge about the importance of maintaining this new macroalgae forest on their beach. This way, we can guarantee that our work will have an impact on the society of Pucusana and will be able to persist in time.

Available Metrics

The success of this project will be measured through egg count (hatchery) of marine specimens at the beginning and post implantation of the macroalgae forest and raising environmental awareness among fishermen about overfishing.

Collaborators

Blue Mood could not be a reality without the direct support of the Pucusana fishing community, since this work is for their well-being and improvement at sea. So far, we have the support of Frank Bravo, who is a fisherman and tour guide in this locality. He has been a fisherman since he was a child and remembers with great nostalgia the times when the amount of fish abounded on his beach.

We are fortunate to have the scientific support of the Universidad Científica del Sur and Dr. Paul Baltazar, who leads the experimental larviculture laboratory. In addition, we count on the scientific support of the prospective Magister Álvaro Recoba, a specialist in marine biology. We have also established connections globally with the Climate Reality project and learned from other projects around the world that have already implemented a similar solution globally.