MiPez App

Unplanned economic development is rapidly degrading river basins putting at risk inland fisheries and food provision across the globe.  A case in point is the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, where around 35.000 low-income fishers and their families are struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Fish production has halved in the last 35 years as waters were polluted and forest cleared. An informed and participatory decision-making approach is needed to balance water, energy, and food nexus. TNC designed MiPez app based on fishers’ living and working conditions for them to report their activities, while informing about the health and biodiversity of the river. The app feeds TNC’s SIMA, decision support system, available for authorities to guide the planning of the whole watershed. By combining robust environmental and social data with fisher's inputs, our solution guides the basin’s future by preserving fishers' livelihoods, protecting freshwater ecosystems and preventing adverse impacts from economic activities.  

Agriculture, infrastructure, and climate change are driving transformations in basins across the globe. Although inland capture fisheries provide at least 11.47 million tons of food for millions of people, their status and health remain largely unknown. Vulnerable inland fisheries are competing for water resources with other more valued economic sectors while facing climate risks. Fishers are hustled to shift their practices for more harmful techniques, leading to overfishing.  Currently, 30% of freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction and there has been a decline of 76% in migratory freshwater species in the last 4 decades. 

The Magdalena River Basin is the social and economic heart of Colombia. It produces 80% of GDP and is home to 77% of the country's 50 million inhabitants. In the last five decades, 70% of the basin's forests were cleared, causing erosion of 78% in the river. Fish production has halved in the last 35 years affecting at least 157.000 people. The basin has over 30 built hydropower dams with an additional 100 possible projects. Rapid and poorly designed development is disturbing river flows and harming wildlife and local livelihoods, which depend on fishing for food security (avg. 36,5 kg/yr of fish per person).

MiPez app allows the freshwater ecosystems to be sustainably treated by fishers in the Magdalena Basin that can keep track and record their fishing activities by collecting information such as their fishing sites, fished species, and fishing techniques without internet access. Once they arrive from their fishing operations, fishers can indicate their catches through a gallery of photos of species already preloaded in the app. The app also helps them to control their expenses, consumption, sale markets and profits.

As fishers load information in MiPez, the app consolidates a database with important socio-environmental indicators such as most fished species, fishing times, and relevant sites for this economic activity. These data are crucial to determine the basin's health and identify which rivers are experiencing a decline in fish stock. In addition, the information is helpful for authorities and local associations to prevent overfishing and integrate fishing-dependent communities’ data into larger analysis in the development of the basin. For instance, MiPez’s data can feed TNC’s Macrobasin Decision Support System (SIMA), a web application to promote early planning and better decision making based on future changes in population, climate change, land use or infrastructure projects. It allows the modelling of possible future scenarios informing about benefits and impacts. 

Our target population is the fisher's communities in the remote wetlands and riverbanks of the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia's central and northern regions.  Our research in 2015 estimated that around 35.000 fishermen are living in the Magdalena basin. Their productive activities provide income and food for about 157.000 people. They live in conditions of poverty with an average income of less than 130 USD per month. However, their activities are crucial for maintaining food security, especially in recent years with severe climate events such as extreme droughts and floods due to El Niño (2015) and La Niña (2011) events. In this context, there is an urgent need to bolster their voice, actions, and choices, especially at the national level, by making their livelihoods and necessities visible. MyPez app allows them to do so, but it requires to expand its use among the local communities, authorities and private entities.

The prolonged armed conflict in Colombia has also impacted fishers' communities as they have been victims of massacres, the killing of leaders, and forced displacement. Yet, despite all of this, their traditional artisanal fishing practices, together with their rich-cultural expressions, are on the way to be recognized as immaterial heritage by UNESCO. 

MiPez aligns with the global challenge of contributing to the resilience of ecosystems, specifically regarding the gap in scalable and verifiable monitoring and data collection. Our solution seeks to fill the information gap to assess the basin’s health by gathering local actors (fishers) data and integrate it with larger datasets. This information can generate accurate warnings about sustainable fishing management, the ecosystem services more impacted, and areas with diminished fishing production. In addition, the data gathered can shed light on freshwater biodiversity indicators by informing on species’ diversity and distribution across the basin.  

TNC started to develop MiPez between 2019 and 2020.  Since then, the app has increased its functionalities and design.  The app is currently used by 120 fishers in the low-basin area of the Magdalena River, thanks to the partnership with a Fundación Natura, a local NGO, but the idea is to scale the usability with active fisherman that fill the data and more local and national authorities and companies that use wisely the information gathered to make the right decisions on fishing areas, techniques and species.

At the moment we have an agreement with the AUNAP, the National Authority on fishing that is starting to boost.

As MiPez’s info is integrated into SIMA, it presents unique characteristics compared to other tech solutions for basins management. As a result, we have not yet encountered competitors. These are the main highlights of our innovation:

 Tailored Design for Vulnerable Communities: MiPez app considers the educational limitations of low-income fishers to read. It is designed to be a very visual and user-friendly front-end with many drawings and photos. It also takes into account the connectivity restrictions of the mobile network in isolated regions. It saves coordinates offline and uploads them to SIMA when a network connection is available. 

Economic and Social Data about Fishers’ Communities: MiPez collects and organizes essential information about fishers’ communities such as their vessels, fishing gears, operation costs, sales opportunities and income.

Free Culture Philosophy: MiPez is based on values that promote collective action for sustainability. It's an open-source and collaborative tool to gather important information for the sustainable development of rivers.

Worldwide Potential Use:  MiPez can be adapted and used in different basins across the globe.

Strong Analytical Capacity:  As MiPez information feeds SIMA, the data gathered by the app has the potential to influence important modeling and assessment capacity that seeks to put into practice the Water-Food-Energy Nexus approach by integrating the cross-sectors decisions that affect the sustainability of the basin. This is a remarkable advance in turning conceptual approaches into feasible and practical tools for sustainable planning. 

As the application was under development until recently, we are testing it with 120 fishers in the department of Cesar in northern Colombia, in alliance with Fundación Natura, a local NGO. Additionally, thanks to TNC's advocacy efforts, the National Authority of Aquaculture and Fisheries (AUNAP) allowed us to incorporate the national fishers' database into the MiPez app registry process. By having this information linked, the 6,250 fishermen registered in the AUNAP database can easily log in to the MiPez app without having to type their complete information, facilitating the app's access and use.  However, they still need to be trained on how to report data in the app.

In one year, we plan to start with at least two associations in the Magdalena middle-basin subregion (Barbacoas wetlands) and another in the low-basin area (Zapatosa wetland). Also with other entities (think-tanks, universities, local and governmental entities (such as the AUNAP and Cormagdalena) we expect to reach proximately 550 fishers.

In five years, we want to reach the engagement of several public and private entities. We expect to empower other associations in the Magdalena river basin and increase the number of fishers using MiPez app to approximately 2350 fishers. If SIMA is properly used to make strategic decisions at the basin level, the number of indirectly benefited people will rise to at least 20% of the river basin, which corresponds to approximately 6 million people whose income and food security depends on a healthy Magdalena River Basin.

Our work is linked to SDG 6, 2 and 1. Specifically, MiPez contributes to 6.5, 6.6 implement integrated water resources management  protect and restore water-related ecosystems,but also 2.3 increasing agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers.

To measure our progress, we set the following indicators 

In one year:

• Number of MiPez downloads
• Number of fishers and fisher associations using the MiPez app
• Number of participants in the training workshops
• Size of database gathered by the app about fishing practices 

In 5 years, the relate to TNC`s Shared Conservation agenda metrics:

• Km of rivers protected and better managed
• Ha of protected lentic ecosystems and better managed

Since MiPez is a spatially explicit tool (we know where the fishermen who use it are and how they use it) it is possible to directly analyze the impact and progress in the goals set and the contribution of MiPez to the objectives of the Freshwater team set. It is enough to analyze the data obtained from the application according to its use and establish the areas of freshwater ecosystems where the impact is had. Of course, in addition to this, in situ verifications must be carried out to verify with biological and health indicators of aquatic ecosystems that the desired effect is being obtained in terms of improving the resilience conditions of the ecosystems of interest.

At least fifteen different staff members from The Nature Conservancy have participated in the development of SIMA and MiPez to some degree. For this grant, a core development team of 5 people will be working between 5 to 45% of their working hours during 12 months.

Present in Colombia for more than 30 years, The Nature Conservancy has worked hard to establish strategic partnerships and has become a leading voice for conservation in the country. TNC's work to date has demonstrated an ability to deliver science-based action and results on the ground through collaborating with local communities. 

Since 2009, we have worked for the sustainability of the Magdalena macro-basin by implementing ecosystems-based adaptation in diverse inland wetlands, establishing public-private partnerships for basins conservation, and transforming sustainable cattle ranching practices with farmers. Our work with SIMA started in 2015 to develop innovative free open-access modeling tools for the basin's future development.  Our work on watershed planning has involved on-ground research with fishers' communities and their involvement in data-gathering and monitoring for proper resources management since 2018.

Our team consists of five specialists in hydrology, software development, biology, policy, communications, and business fields.  Additionally, we have a network of scientists and conservation specialists from our global and regional offices.

Our strengths are:

-Presence at different levels

- Network across sectors

-Credibility and science-based reputation

-Trust on the ground

TNC’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is embedded in our Code of Conduct and our Values, Commitment to Diversity and Respect for People, Communities, and Cultures. We recognize that conservation is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people of widely diverse backgrounds, experiences and identities. We also have several Policies and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) seeking to ensure compliance with our core values and local laws. Additionally, we expect third parties and partners with whom we do business to conduct themselves in ways that are consistent with our Code.  

We believe that the Global Challenge 2021 and the Become a Solver approach fits perfectly with MiPez solutions and needs for taking these innovations up to the next level for its use and implementation.

The network of partners and support coming along with the awards will mainly allow us to strengthen our software development partners and to innovate in our revenue model. We expect that the future mentorship given by SOLVE and MIT can boost the last development phase of our solution.  

One key challenge we are facing is related to our technical capacities for developing and maintaining software tools. In that sense, we are looking for a partner that has this experience, who could be in charge of the software developing while we, as a conservation organization, can focus on developing the tools that could be added to the system and the implementation with stakeholders in the geographies where we work.

We also need to update our funding and revenue model, so we need a partner advisor on this too. As a non-profit NGO, our main focus is on our conservation projects and the app is not financually independent, so an advisor or a partner's interest in solving this challenge could be very useful. 

It would be great if MIT CSAIL (programming languages and software engineering) and the MIT Digital Transformation Program finds these solutions interesting and be willing to partner with us. As mentioned in barriers, we need partners to strengthened and complement our capacities in technical areas where we are not the best organization. TNC could partner with MIT to promote research groups that addresses key issues for MiPez, through collaboratively work with professors and students, that are willing to work in real and practical science.

We also believe that receiving support from private companies can open possibilities to use MiPez as a starting point for improving local fisheries associations' commercial relationships.  Companies could also support training activities with fishers through MiPez app.  

We would like to be considered for the GM Prize. Our solutions seek to bring technology close to fishers’ communities, aiming to create smart and sustainable conditions for this population to thrive.  MiPez generates data and information around the fishing activity of the entire basin through the direct participation of local fishers. This seeks to make visible an economic activity that is relevant for communities' food security.

These fisheries-dependent communities have been victims of forced displacement due to the prolonged armed conflict in Colombia and, recently, extreme weather events such as droughts and floods intensified by climate change. As Colombia slowly advances in a post-conflict phase after the Peace Agreement signing in 2016, we believe that powerful digital tools such as SIMA and MiPez contribute to a sustainable development pathway, which considers vulnerable communities such as the fishers communities.

So far, through our work we have confirmed the positive impact of software development tools focused on increasing the visibility of these communities. We have witnessed how important it is for fishers to appear in the MiPez app in training activities. For them, the fact that their name and fisher registry number show up in a digital interface, such as the app, reflects how important their knowledge and practices are for the health of the river and decision-making processes regarding fishing resources.  At the same time, fishers recognized the importance of sharing information between them and working together to highlight their livelihoods and economic activities as part of the macro-basin management. 

We believe our solution can be a decisive factor in improving biodiversity knowledge, the participation of fishing communities in protecting the Magdalena River freshwaters and increased resilience of these communities regarding external factors such as infrastructure development and climate change events.  

Our solution should be considered for the Minderoo Prize to End Global overfishing for the following reasons:

• MiPez app allows gathering information about freshwater biodiversity, average fish catches by local fishers, and other characteristics of their fishing practices and operations. There is an urgent gap of information in the country regarding the in-land fisheries, especially in the Magdalena River basin, that concentrates 80% of the country’s GDP. 
• As MiPez’s data can show about the decline of species, local and national authorities can react and start monitoring and sanctions. In addition, when the app shows more challenging conditions for local fishers to catch the minimum amount of fish catch for their subsistence, authorities can also respond to food security risks.  For these applications, it is needed a large spread of the app among local fishers’ groups.
• The app can also play a key role in preventing overfishing as environmental notifications can be sent to local fishers (e.g., closed season for vulnerable species). Hence, we will be contributing to biodiversity conservation.
• MiPez can also be a solid tech-ally for map out rich biodiversity sites across the basin. Fishers can mark geolocations of places with good quality fishing stocks.  Hence, this information can be helpful to plan sustainable management plants for species areas in the basin.