Fishers Co-Managing Al Hoceima's Marine Park

Created in 2008 in Al Hoceima, AGIR works with small-scale fishers to co-manage the marine zone of Al Hoceima National Park, Morocco's only combined land-and-sea national park. AGIR helped establish no-take zones and adjacent buffer areas that eradicated illegal trawling inside the protected area and drove an estimated 20-30% increase in marine resource abundance across monitored species and ecosystems. The association also runs North Africa's first marine observatory for real-time ecological monitoring and has trained over 100 women in sustainable fishing and shellfish-related livelihoods. In 2014, AGIR's work won the UN Equator Prize for community-based marine and coastal resource management.