Costa Rica

Global Fishing Watch and the Costa Rican Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute (Incopesca) began their formal collaboration in July 2020 after signing a memorandum of understanding to share the monitoring data of fishing vessels from the Central American country on the Global Fishing Watch map. With the technological support of Global Fishing Watch, Costa Rica has strengthened its surveillance and control capacity and taken important steps forward in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Since January 2022, the activity data of approximately 100 Costa Rican industrial longline and purse seine vessels were made publicly visible on our map.

Ninety-two percent of Costa Rica is comprised of marine territory, while only eight percent is continental land. The country’s jurisdictional waters cover nearly 231,661 square miles (600,000 square kilometers), and it is a nation widely recognized for its global environmental leadership. Artisanal fishing is a vital source of work for many coastal communities, while pelagic fisheries for tuna, dorado and swordfish account for the vast majority of catches. In the case of tuna, fishing is mainly carried out by foreign vessels licensed to operate in Costa Rican waters.

The Central American country has made efforts to promote sustainable fisheries and aquaculture production and the development of a blue economy that guarantees the continuity of marine resources, especially for artisanal fishers. The technology provided by Global Fishing Watch supports these actions and facilitates decision-making for marine management.

The waters of the Costa Rican Pacific are home to Isla del Coco, a national park inhabited by 1,688 species of marine fauna, of which 47 percent are endemic.

With almost 1,300 kilometers of Pacific and Caribbean coastline, Costa Rica co-chairs with France and the United Kingdom the 30×30 initiative promoting the agreement to protect at least 30 percent of the global land and oceans by 2030. In addition, at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, the country joined Ecuador, Panama and Colombia in a declaration to create a marine biosphere reserve in the Pacific, protecting the Marine Corridor of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, which includes the islands of Coco, Galapagos, Malpelo and Coiba.