The approach

1. Autonomous community organisation in terms of new ecology based on own ways of life.
2. Community-based participative collaboration with academy to introduce innovation.
3. Enhancement of ancestral knowledge and territorial rights.

How long you’ve been running it

Twenty-four years 

Actors

The local Corporación JUMAPACOM Manglares Don Goyo which unites seven legal associations of small artisanal crabbers and traditional near shores fishers which represent six ancestral mangrove islands ancestral communities.
– Fundación Cerro Verde
– Schutzwald e.V.
And for the new implementation plan (2024-2025) additionally:
– Camilo Martínez, PhD, marine biologist
– Escuela de Pesca del Pacífico Oriental (EPESPO)
– Coordinadora Ecuatoriana de Organizaciones de Defensa de la Naturaleza y del Ambiente (CEDENMA)
– Corporación ECOLEX, an environmental law ngo – Facultad Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) – Centro Ecuatoriano para la Protección y Acción de las Mujeres (CEPAM)

Objectives/why

• Monitoring of red crab for sustainable use and reduction of mangrove degradation.
• Capacity-building for the diversification of artisanal bio-undertakings.
• Strengthening of sustainable livelihoods and cultural-socio-ecological empowerment.

Reasons:

• Overfishing of red crab depredates mangrove forests.
• Insufficient participation because of gender inequality and non-contextualized education.

How it’s going

The project started in the year 2000 in remote communities with ephemeral organization and practically no basic social services and mayor analfabetism, just awakening of the vast invasion of shrimp industry acompanied with the destruction of 60-70% of Ecuadors’ mangrove ecosystem, on the basis of an agreement with the Ministry for Environment to the concession for community-based management of remaining 15.000 hectares of mangrove forests. Since then the communities have organized social services, improved housing and do fairly well with high prices for crabs. On the other side, overfishing endangers the mangroves and future sustentation of the local economy, although custody by the fishers has achieved no more logging and a naturally increase of about 5% of the mangrove forest. We go for gender integration, crab monitoring, cultural rescue and economic diversification.

Challenges

Mayor problems the fisher face with shrimp-industry pollution of residuos and noise in the estuaries and access to fishing grounds. So the acuafauna inventory has changed by less presence of customary species punishing local fishers. Although shrimp-industry claims that it does no pollute there is no interlocutation with local organisations. Other mayor problem is the incompetence of five authorities in charge of mangrove areas. Fisher denunciation of logging has been scarcely responded, if at all; the state does no comply with constitutional safety rights as pirates roam everywhere and fishing is at high personal and material risk and illegal fishing is not controlled by the state. A very hazardous element is the huge bureaucratic paperwork which exhaust leaderships and within the overall corruption.

Benefits of your work, for the Wetlands Convention

Contribution to Ecuador-Ramsar-Sites’ neotropical wetland protection.
Innovative community-based management practices.
Participation in WWN actions.

Recommendations you make to the Convention   

Control the extralimital influence of the global shrimp industry in Ramsar decisions by consequent voting rights of local communities with small artisanal fisheries.