For the Humedales Foundation and the community of local fishermen he is very pleasing to inform that the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Colombia by means of Agreement 11-2007 approved the regulation of the fishing activity in the Lagoon of Fúquene and formalized the Committee of Fishing and Environmental Arrangement, GLASS, granting to him decision faculties on pesquerías in this Andean ecosystem.  Also the Agreement declares Zone of Fishing Arrangement to Fúquene and institutionalizes the fishing monitoreo as handling strategy.

 This Agreement is a effort of 5 years undertaken by the Humedales Foundation with the decided collaboration of the fishermen of Fúquene and the support of the INCODER. Based on the results generated by projects of participativa investigation that allowed to evaluate the state of the populations of fish and the activity of use, combined to an ample effort of social work and qualification they allowed to culminate in the promulgation in the mentioned agreement that is constituted in a departure point to continue advancing in the conservation of the endemic species of fish of this important complex of humedales of the Valley of the Ubaté River and towards the recovery and local recognition of pesquerías like activity that prohangs by the improvement of the condition of life of the fishermen of Fúquene.

We considered that the cohandling of a fishing resource thus obtained is a first passage towards the legal constitution of a form of joint handling of the other natural resources in the context of the handling of the ecosystem like protected area. The Colombian law anticipates the creation of “concessions” and of “special areas of fishing”, which could be you considered as a form of protected area that would be equivalent to “areas protected with use of handled natural resources” (category I SAW of the UICN), and with communitarian form of gobernanza.

The process counted on the support of national and international institutions that have joined this cause of conservation. Of special relevance it is the participation of the community of fishermen, now grouped in the Association the Founders, who tied through days of qualification and from year 2006 like coinvestigators of the program of participativo monitoreo of the state of the ecosystem led by the Humedales Foundation. In this program the fishermen make the technical pursuit of the populations of fish of the Lagoon and the fishing activity, looking for to know the effects the handling in the resource that represents for this human group one of subsistence means. The results of the monitoreo are being analyzed and will be including within the strategy of conservation and adaptive handling that sets out for Fúquene.

 We want to be thankful very sincerely to the institutions that have supported to us of one or another form in this profit and special to the INCODER, the Institute Alexander von Humboldt and the CAR, organizations that along with the Association the Founders and the Humedales Foundation comprise of the Committee of Fishing and Environmental Arrangement, GLASS, and that has showed their determined support so that the process of conservation and recovery of Fúquene continues.