Profile
I love fishing at all timesJeannette Naranjo
A Costa Rican fisherwoman is today the manager of a community-based tourism initiative
By Vivienne Solis Rivera (vsolis@coopesolidar.org), Member, ICSF
Jeannette is part of a fishing family in Tárcoles, a fishing community on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Her father has been a fisherman all his life, and her mother collects bivalves and other fisheries products for a living. She has six brothers.
Today, Jeannette is the manager of the ConsorcioPorlaMar R.L, a community-based tourism initiative that works with Costa Ricans to help them learn and value small-scale fishing activity. This local enterprise promotes responsible artisanal fisheries as a dignified way of life that contributes to biological and cultural conservation of coastal and marine resources, and benefits local families in Tárcoles.
It is part of Jeanette’s daily responsibilities to organize artisanal fishing trips for visitors, including students, during which she explains to them the importance of small-scale fishing for the wellbeing of not only local communities but the country as a whole. She talks about how small-scale fishing provides food for families, work for men, youth and women, and fish for the entire nation. Jeanette’s words ring true because she a fisher herself. But she also makes it a point to emphasize that small-scale fishing communities have certain basic needs that cannot be ignored those of education, health and human rights.
Says Jeanette: I love fishing at all times, no matter if the sea is calm or strong. When I go out fishing, what counts is how much fish I catch, and how much I enjoy doing this work.
How has she coped with the demands of a fishing life? For a fishing woman, fishing is a hard life, says Jeanette, but I have been able to give my daughter a good education with the resources that I make through fishing. When I am in the boat and night falls, I hear the sound of the sea as it hits the boat, and the breeze of the night relaxes me. I love sleeping out at sea.
Jeanette is passionate about nurturing the artisanal fisheries: Artisanal fishing is important for our food security; it also gives us a way forward in life economically.
