Marissa Revilla, GPJ Mexico
Sarahí Ruiz drives a boat in the Los Cerritos lagoon in Acapetahua, Chiapas, Mexico.
CHIAPAS, MEXICO — Before the sun has begun to emerge, Luis Cruz and Sarahí Ruiz leave their children, aged 1 and 3, in the care of an aunt. Then, they travel in silence through Las Lauras, the community of 460 residents where they live, in the direction of Los Cerritos lagoon. They’re hoping for a good catch.
On the water, Cruz lets fly the cast net he uses to fish over and over again while Ruiz drives the boat. They remain for over three hours, beneath the scorching sun. At the end of their workday, the couple has 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of shrimp, enough to feed their family but not enough to sell.
“Before, there were too many [to catch],” Cruz says. “With one cast net, you would catch a lot of fish, but now it’s a very small amount.”
Like many of their neighbors in Las Lauras, in the Chiapas municipality of Acapetahua, in southern Mexico, Cruz and Ruiz depend on fishing in Los Cerritos for food and income. But an increase in sediment has led to a drop in the lagoon’s water levels. Local families have had to look for alternative ways to earn money, and they fear for their way of life.
“Los Cerritos lagoon, at this time, has lost part of its water mirror. And in the dry season it is possible to walk in the center of the lagoon,” Juan Carlos Castro, director of La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve, said in November 2023. La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve is a federally protected area for conservation, research and the application of sustainable development models that take local communities into consideration. “This brings with it a decrease in fishing productivity.”
“Water mirror” refers to the appearance of the surface of the water.
Castro explained that the problem involves shoaling, that is, the deposit of sediment on the bottom of a body of water. This phenomenon is affecting the Chantuto-Panzacola-San Nicolás and Carretas-Pereyra lagoon systems, which make up La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve.
Although shoaling has a variety of causes, such as deforestation and the construction of “bordos” (structures similar to dikes or levees for containing water), experts say the problem in Los Cerritos has been aggravated by modifications to the course of the Cintalapa River, which feeds the area’s bodies of water.
Changes to the Cintalapa River began in the 1970s to support agricultural activity in the area, according to studies conducted by researchers at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, a public research center specializing in problems facing the region. After hurricanes Mitch, in 1998, and Stan, in 2005, the work of dredging and straightening rivers intensified to protect the population from natural disasters. However, these actions have not rectified the problem.
“What they did was they practically made a slide from the middle reaches to the lower reaches, taking the river’s natural sinuosity away,” says Matilde Rincón, who holds a doctorate in ecology and is a member of the advisory board for La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve. “This means that a lot of sediment gets stuck there, and it also means that the water arrives at the lower reaches with more force. And it stays there, not moving, together with all the sediment brought down from the upper reaches.”
“There’s nothing. That’s why the fishers have to migrate.”
Humberto Molina Escobar, 46, is a fisherman and resident of Las Lauras. Although Los Cerritos is the closest lagoon — just a few dozen meters from his house — there are days when he drives his pickup truck 25 kilometers (16 miles) to Panzacola lagoon.
Fishers enter that lagoon at midafternoon and cast their nets until dawn because they do a different type of fishing there. What it means for Molina, however, is that he spends more time at Panzacola, plus the commute, compared to the three or four hours he would ordinarily spend at Los Cerritos. The economic costs are higher, too.
“The expense here includes buying gasoline, spending about two hours getting to the spot where we’re going to work. And, well, you spend more,” says Molina, who earns between 80 and 100 Mexican pesos (between approximately 4 and 6 United States dollars) per kilogram of shrimp from Panzacola. At Los Cerritos, people pay 70 pesos (about 4 dollars) per kilogram, he says.
But there are times when going to a different lagoon is not a workable solution. Tránsito Molina Cruz, president of Sociedad Cooperativa de Bienes y/o Servicios de Producción Pesquera “Los Cerritos,” an organization founded in 1942 that markets seafood in the area, says that this year, they have not caught “even a single shrimp” in Panzacola lagoon.
The low catches have forced some Las Lauras residents to emigrate from the community to support their families.
Four of Leticia Vázquez López’s five children have gone to the United States in search of better opportunities. Now, her principal cause for concern is the future of her last child who lives in the community.
“He’ll go fishing one day, and, fate or God willing, he’ll catch at most 3, 4 kilos [of seafood],” Vázquez López, 54, says. By her calculations, in that case, her son would receive barely 100 pesos (approximately 6 dollars) for one day’s work.
In Mexico, the minimum wage for 2024 is 248.93 pesos per day (approximately 15 dollars).
Vázquez López recalls that when she came to Las Lauras 21 years ago, it was a different scene. She fished with her husband and could choose which seafood “to eat and which was best for selling.”
“As of now, there’s nothing. I can tell you there is nothing. That’s why the people or the fishers have to migrate, because there’s nothing to raise a family on,” she says.
Edgar Vázquez, the financial officer on the board of Sociedad Cooperativa de Bienes y/o Servicios de Producción Pesquera “Los Cerritos,” stresses the economic consequences of the shoaling.
“Today, there were 30 canoes, 60 people. They caught 100 kilos. Multiply 100 kilos by 50. That’s 5,000 pesos divided among 60: an average of 80 pesos for each fisher,” he says.
No clear solutions
Luis Cruz and Sarahí Ruiz, the couple that fishes together, fry their shrimp catch with a heap of garlic, a preparation called “mojo de ajo.” Although they worry about the low catches, they have additional income that gives them peace of mind.
“We have a plot of palm trees, and that brings in a little money for us,” Ruiz says. “Many people sold their plots because of the situation, and they lost that income. We’re also in a tree-planting program and have to plant coconut, soursop [and] banana.”
Several other families in Las Lauras have diversified as well, planting sweet potatoes or cassava for their own consumption in case their catch is low.
Meanwhile, authorities are trying to assess the problem, which they believe is worsening every day.
Felipe Irineo Pérez, the director-general of Organismo de Cuenca Frontera Sur, part of the National Water Commission, the government agency that manages, regulates, monitors and protects Mexico’s water, said in February that deforestation in the upper reaches of the Cintalapa River basin has eroded the land. And it has caused more sediment to wash into bodies of water during the rainy season.
To respond to the problem, he believes it is necessary to create a water plan that would involve a series of studies allowing for a comprehensive assessment and for solutions to be aligned so the area’s lagoons can be dredged.
Castro, the director of La Encrucijada Biosphere Reserve, hopes the lagoon’s management plan includes partial dredging to increase surface area and depth in order to support fishing activities. He says these efforts have been delayed due to lack of resources.
“I would hope that, in not too much time, a comprehensive study can be done on the entire Chantuto-Panzacola lagoon system, including the upper reaches of the basins, and for decisions to be made based on that,” he says. “We are not ruling out dredging, but [it should be] well targeted, and the handling of the extracted material modified. It can be used to restore mangroves.”
While the government takes measures to prevent Los Cerritos and other lagoons from deteriorating, Cruz and Ruiz return to their children and prepare for the next day of work. They have decided not to go anywhere, preferring instead to seek out alternative ways to prosper in Las Lauras, even on the days when they have a poor catch.
Marissa Revilla is a Global Press Journal reporter based in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico.
TRANSLATION NOTE
Shannon Kirby, GPJ, translated this article from Spanish.
