Diana Vasquez grew up in the fishing village of El Aceituno, Honduras, where her grandfather was a fisherman. To this day, he obviously imagines his little world surrounded by “shells everywhere. “There were thousands and thousands.
“When I was a child, the main street was covered with those white shells. And the walls of houses, like a cement of crushed shells. My grandmother built an outer bed of shells just to dry clothes because the shells absorb heat. of the sun.
But under the pressure of overfishing, pollutants and climate change, El Aceituno is a shadow of what it was before. Once an artisanal fishing community, it has shrunk considerably.
Today, motivated by the love of the country, the connection with the sea and those who live from it, Vásquez defends the fishing communities of Central America with the global environmental non-profit organization, “Rare”. The medium-sized NGO (budget of $32 million for fiscal year 2022) is founded in Arlington, Virginia. Grants from governments and foundations, as well as contributions from Rare’s 178 american global painters in their environmental paintings, whether on land or at sea. This includes not only the paintings shown from grassroots organizations, but also the clinical collection and sharing of knowledge about the state of the waters, the creatures that live in them, and the families who count on a physically powerful fishery to supply food to their families. and beyond.
Across Honduras, communities will now have to mobilize to conserve their coastal livelihoods in the face of not only climate pressures, but also the effect of overfishing, large and small, from large advertising trawlers to local fishermen. Vasquez has helped netpainting teams organize and work with their government to produce effects that maintain their unique way of life, born from the link between the ocean and culture.
The challenge is unique to Honduras or even Central America. This summer, the UN refined its global “blue transformation” effort to, as it says, “strengthen the prospect of underwater food systems and sustainably feed the developing world’s population. “
There have been few times in recent history where the hard work of preserving the oceans, restoring marine biodiversity and maintaining the world’s food source has been crossed into the largest type of typhoon facing the planet lately.
According to Rare, only about 3 billion people worldwide count fish as their main source of protein. In fact, the ancestry of fish as a vital source of food is important, as the World Food Programme reported this month that global famine is in jeopardy. increase, with an estimated 828 million other people going hungry in 2021. The WFP has issued a red alert to increased famine in the world due to the war in Ukraine, climate change and the pandemic and economic tensions.
That’s a lot to assume, and where to start is the most daunting question of all. However, beyond the major foreign issues of ocean repair and complicated clinical diagnostics, there are other people who do the painstaking work on the site of methodical reconstruction. Rare’s inshore fishing program called “Fish Forever” reaches more than 1. 6 million members of fishing net paintings on 4 continents. Rocky Sanchez Tirona is the program’s executive director.
“Rare is all about behavior change; we call them behavior-focused solutions,” says Tirona. “We’re running for other people, whether it’s the community, leaders or even the national government, to align with a common vision of more sustainable coastal fishing and then act together. “
The target of these efforts is “territorial seas,” coastal ocean waters subject to the authority of a local government. These waters enlarge up to 12 nautical miles from the coast. Compared to the entire waterscape on the planet, those coastal waters make up less than six percent of the sea. But Rare points out that this is where the ocean’s greatest biodiversity lies and where, with nearly 500 million people living in those areas, some of the intense human desires are felt.
Tyrant breaks it down even more. ” Territorial seas make up six% of the ocean. But 70% of marine biodiversity is in those six%, because that’s where coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass meadows are located, all species related to these habitats are located. In terms of employment, these are small-scale fisheries, where a total of almost 113 million people work for employment or subsistence.
Beyond that, the quality of the catches from those fisheries is incredibly different. “Between artisanal and commercial fishing, 40% of the catches are made in artisanal fishing. It turns out to be a small number,” says Tirona. But 97% of the catches of that 40% are for food. “This contrasts sharply with commercial fishing, he says, which becomes animal feed or other things.
Marine ecologist and nature photographer George Stoyle is the virtual architect of Rare’s Fish Forever data pipeline, which includes widely available data on ecosystem health, the resilience of climate substitution, fish production, family surveys, and, at least at present, the influence of the covid pandemic.
He visited and photographed the 4 continental sites of Fish Forever.
“Informed decision-making is the ultimate purpose of knowledge,” Stoyle says. “We have national groups that collect knowledge on the ground, aggregate and analyze it, and make it available to municipal governments to help municipal governments. in the decision-making procedure to manage resources in the most productive way. “
Fish Forever, with an annual budget of $10. 5 million, constantly strives to expand the wide network of other people who gain advantages or directly from Rare’s work. They are found along the Caribbean coasts of Honduras and Guatemala, the Amazon coast of Brazil, the extensive marine coast of Mozambique, the small island state of Palau, Sulawesi, Indonesia, which is part of the Coral Triangle, and 60 municipalities in the Philippines, where the Fish Forever program began in 2013.
Rare’s challenge: how coastal fishing communities respond to global visions, such as the initiative backed by nearly a hundred nations that aims to make 30% of the world’s land and water spaces “protected spaces” by 2030, or, in short, “30 to 30.
Great goal, says Tirona, but who will?
“In many places where we work, it’s becoming very difficult. We say: science tells us that if you leave 20% of critical habitats alone and don’t touch them and let them recover, you’ll actually see more fish coming out of there. “So, they will communicate with each other: Can we handle the 20%? It may still be too high. So, they may be moving on to start with 10% and move up to 20% later.
In England, a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge learned this summer about what they see as fifteen of the most demanding situations for marine biodiversity. Listed in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution”, they differ from the effect of forests. fires, exploitation of resources, overfishing, ocean mining of various types and of course endemic pollution.
On the immediate side of those restrictions are Rare’s constituents: shaken by hurricanes, suffering from excessive heat and drought, throwing lines into depleted waters. By extension, however, so are we all.