Is eating octopus sustainable? The struggle of artisanal fishers from Mexico to Spain

Polvo à Lagareiro in Portugal, pulpo a la Gallega in Spain, polpo alla Luciana in Italy, or chtapódi xidháto in Greece – across the coastal regions of southern Europe, octopus is a traditional dish that has long held a place on local tables. Today, it’s widely available in restaurants and supermarkets across the continent, often at affordable prices.

While consumption is on the rise, octopus catches are in decline. As a result, much of the octopus served in Europe no longer comes from European waters.

On the sun-drenched coast of Progreso, Mexico, Suemy Lugo oversees the careful cleaning and preparation of octopus destined for export. A biologist and quality-control specialist at a seafood export company in the Yucatán Peninsula, Lugo is part of a supply chain that makes Mexico the world’s third-largest producer of octopus. Most of it is shipped to the United States, Italy and Spain.

The growing global demand for octopus certified as sustainable has pushed the sector toward closer collaboration. In Yucatán, this has led to the formation of the Octopus Alliance – a fishery improvement project (FIP) aimed at boosting the sustainability of local fishing practices.

The alliance has recently undergone inspection by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) in a bid to obtain sustainability certification. The MSC label is an internationally recognised standard that verifies whether seafood products come from well-managed, sustainable fisheries that minimise their impact on marine ecosystems.

For seafood producers, it’s considered the gold standard – not least because it adds commercial value to the catch.

Suemy Lugo, who regularly takes part in FIP meetings, says the push for certification has had a tangible impact: “The goal of obtaining MSC status has pushed companies to raise their standards with suppliers and has strengthened coordination between fishing communities and exporters.”

“Fishing for hope”

In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, octopus fishing is known locally as the “pesca de la esperanza” – or “fishing for hope”. It’s a vital activity for around 20,000 fishers who rely on the four-month season to recover their investments from the rest of the year.

But behind the global appetite for octopus lies a deepening crisis. Soaring demand has intensified pressure on fisheries and fuelled the spread of illegal practices.

Many younger fishers are turning to gancho (hook) fishing. This illegal and hazardous technique has damaged the seafloor in the highly productive fishing grounds of Campeche state. Its widespread use is believed to be contributing to a noticeable decline in octopus stocks along the coast, forcing law-abiding artisanal fishers to venture further out to sea to find a catch.

In 2023, the situation became so dire that the Campeche authorities imposed a total moratorium on octopus fishing. Insufficient viable stocks had been located to justify the season. The move left many fishers struggling to cover basic expenses.

The fishery improvement project is working to standardise the traditional method known as gareteo. This drifting technique is used to catch the region’s two endemic species: Octopus maya and Octopus americanus (often sold on the market as vulgaris). It remains the only legal method of octopus fishing in this part of Mexico.

Gareteo involves small boats and bamboo poles called jimbas, to which fishers attach crustaceans as bait. This attracts octopuses to the surface without coercion, allowing the catch to be hauled aboard. If the octopus meets the minimum legal size – an 11 cm mantle length and 450 grams in weight – it is kept; otherwise, it is released back into the sea.

In the past, fishers could catch up to 70 kg per day using this technique. In recent seasons, daily hauls have dropped dramatically to just 5 or 6 kg.

Ricardo Novelo, 54, has been fishing octopus for four decades and leads a cooperative near Celestún. As a board member of the Yucatán Octopus fishery improvement project, Novelo is working to promote better fishing practices in one of the region’s busiest ports, home to more than 2,000 artisanal fishers and a hotspot for irregular and illegal fishing.

"The fishery improvement project has helped us build a more structured organisation, providing administrative training, for example. It has also revealed benefits beyond what we usually see as fishers, such as access to better international markets in Europe and Asia. This drives up demand for octopus and, consequently, improves the prices we receive," says Novelo.

After lengthy negotiations, on 4 June a consultative committee was established to enable direct collaboration between the FIP and Mexico’s National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries (CONAPESCA), the main authority overseeing fishing regulation in the country. The development could prove to mark real progress.

The MSC certification assessment process is expected to take around 20 months, as it assesses the entire fishing operation. Yet the FIP currently covers only 20 percent of the fishery.

The pulpeiros of Asturias

On the other side of the Atlantic, along the rugged coasts of Asturias in northern Spain, several fishing villages were among the very first in the world to secure MSC certification for octopus fishing.

Before dawn breaks over the winter waters of the Bay of Biscay, brothers Julio and Isac Blanco set out to sea from Ortiguera. They are joining twenty-eight other small vessels dedicated to octopus fishing under the MSC label. The fishing method they use here is well known both along Europe’s Atlantic coasts and throughout the Mediterranean.

They deploy traps called nasse. Formerly these were simple terracotta pots that were used for millennia. These days they are metal and plastic cages baited with sardines that lure the octopus inside, where escape is nearly impossible.

This method allows Julio and Isac to retrieve their traps and select only octopuses that meet the legal minimum size, releasing undersized individuals and other marine species unharmed back into the sea. “All fishing techniques are destructive, but trawling is undoubtedly the most devastating,” says Julio, president of the Arpesos Association, which coordinates the fishing guilds participating in the MSC project.

"Before we were certified, we knew we were fishing sustainably,” Julio explains. “But we struggled to compete with the lower prices offered by wholesalers who had access to cheaper imports from other parts of the world." 

He admits that enforcing certification rules among the fishers in the association is not always easy. But whenever resistance arises, he asks a simple question: Would you rather keep earning €9 per kilo, as we do now, or go back to €3?

Since gaining certification, this price difference has marked the line between an economically viable livelihood and an uncertain future. Higher prices paid to fishers help to curb overfishing and illegal practices, and thus maintain a balance between harvesting the species and ensuring its survival.

Spain is one of the world’s largest importers of octopus. Its domestic fleet supplies less than a tenth of the volume imported from third countries. Each year, around 75,000 tonnes of octopus enter the country, mainly from West African nations such as Morocco and Mauritania, followed by Mexico and Senegal.

While catches from these countries have increased over the past decade, Spain’s own octopus stocks have declined.

The threat of warming waters

The case of Asturias marked a positive step towards sustainable fishing, but ocean warming is already taking its toll on this species, whose migratory patterns remain something of a mystery.

Last summer, waters off the Yucatán reached 30°C, the highest temperature ever recorded on that coast. The typically cooler ocean off Asturias hit 24°C for the first time in 2018, well above their usual range.

Unlike mammals and birds, cephalopods such as Octopus maya and Octopus vulgaris are ectothermic, meaning they rely on external heat sources to regulate their body temperature. Rising sea temperatures increase the energy and oxygen demands on these molluscs, disrupting basic functions like reproduction.

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Females, for instance, stop producing eggs when temperatures exceed 27°C, explains Carlos Rosas Vázquez, a researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) who has studied the phenomenon for over a decade. Rosas is also a member of the Cephalopod International Advisory. 

"In Octopus maya, we have observed that the thermal limit is around 27°C," he says. “Beyond this temperature, various functions become compromised because the animals cannot take in enough oxygen.”

He explains that female octopuses exposed to thermal stress during egg formation may produce cells with molecular alterations. This can lead to embryos suffering severe biological problems, resulting in malformations that cause early deterioration and, ultimately, death.

The fishing industry’s adaptation strategies urgently need to account for the climate factor. Rosas and other scientists believe that octopuses are migrating in search of cooler waters, both along the coast and on deeper seabeds. Changing ocean conditions are already affecting fisheries that target species that were once considered largely sedentary.

In response to these temperature shifts, France, Portugal, and Spain – working under the guidance of a regional advisory council – are proposing to raise the national minimum catch size to over 1kg for both male and female octopuses. The aim is to encourage stock recovery along the Portuguese and Spanish coasts, where the species is typically fished.

Octopus vulgaris has been spotted as far north as the cooler waters off Brittany in northern France and the UK. That is an unexpected development for local fishers there, who are now scrambling to meet growing market demand.

"We need to act as soon as possible. We must do it now because we have the resources and knowledge," says Carlos Rosas Vázquez. "We need to start taking countermeasures and to gradually introduce more sustainable production techniques."

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network