(Note: Over the next couple of months, we'll be posting updates from Josh Baugh, a student at DePauw University who is interning with FUNZEL, one of El Salvador's leading conservation groups. SEE Turtles has helped fund Josh's work. This is an edited post, for the full story, visit Josh's blog.)
Sat, July 19th, 2010 (Part 1 of 2)
I arrived in San Diego Playa (not to be confused with San Diego, California) on Friday July 9th at around 7 am after leaving from Puerto Parada, the small port at the entrance of the Bahia de Jiquilisco, at around 1 pm on Wednesday. The trip took so long but not because of the distance, as you could cover much of Central America in that time by car. Rather, like any excursion I've been on here in Latin America, there are plenty of stops to make and when you get there isn’t nearly as important as what you manage to do and see along the way.
Irene, a girl around Aldo’s age (15 or 16), was most interested in what I was doing and so she choose to come and hangout with us before I left. There next to the beach we all lounged around on a rancha (boat) looking up at the sky and the surrounding mountains. They all chattered over Aldo’s reggaton (mix of rap and pop music) coming from his phone, while I tried to take in the last bit of the island and its beauty. 9:30 soon passed and it became evident that Nefta’s belief that there would be a rancha was more of a hope than a reality. It was not until 11:50 that a rancha finally came by but nonetheless, just in time to get me to Puerto Parada in time to meet Mike. I was only a few minutes late but it ended up not being a problem as Mike was at home there in the CODEPA office, and the adjacent restaurant. Before hitting the road to San Salvador we had a plate of the local shrimp and a coke while watching Spain play in the semifinal game against Alemania (Germany).
After catching half of the game we hit the road in order to save some time. Having not seen or really talked to Mike in quite a while, I had a great deal to tell him about the island and why I thought moving to San Diego Playa would be a good change. In actuality there was much that he hadn’t told me about the politics between organizations and the problems occurring that I might face. Yet, he did not know the extent of the issues so that drive proved to be very informative for the both of us and frankly really refreshing for me, to find out that there is a lot occurring there currently that is beyond my control (more info below).
The next morning Mike left at 3:30 am for a meeting in Nicaragua so a lady for US AID, Carmen, came to pick me up. It was a bit of a tense morning as Mike, my one tried and true connection in the country was now gone for 10 days in another country, and I was relaying on a lady I had never meet. Yet, she showed up and that day proved to be really interesting as I got to see a lot of the central portion of the coast. After she picked me up at around 9 am, we spent the entire rest of the day going to beaches to talk to the hatchery workers about what sort of technical aspects that can improve in their hatchery. Additionally, I witnessed 3 different meetings she held with the tortugueros in the area as to whether they wanted the price they get paid for a dozen eggs to increase to $3 or to stay at $2.40. All agreed that it was best that it stay at $2.40 so that the US AID money would not run out as quickly because after it does they will want to take the eggs to the market and will be liable to be arrested.One of the meetings was held in San Diego where I was going to be staying; yet she thought it would be best if I returned the next morning so that I could experience more of the beaches. I didn’t have a problem with that so after a quick introduction following the meeting we hit the road. After a final meeting that night in a nearby beach, Carmen and I were shown our rooms that a guy was kind enough to let us use for the night. It wasn’t much more than a mattress and a few walls, but I was out cold by 9:30 pm. That next morning at 6 we headed straight for San Diego where I meet Antonio again and after being shown my room Carmen left. To my surprise Antonio was much more welcoming than he had been the previous night in a business setting. He quickly made me feel at home by introducing me to his daughter and grandson that live with him and sitting down with me to a delicious breakfast.
Antonio is a bit of a legend in El Salvador I am told, as he was the first in the country to begin collecting eggs for conservation purposes. Eighteen years ago, he started his own hatchery here in San Diego by asking tortugeros, egg collectors, if they would donate a dozen or so to his hatchery. To put things in perspective, last year his hatchery released 92,000 olive ridley tortuguitas (hatchlings), making his hatchery one of the most productive in the country. Statistically however, only 1 out of every 1,000 will survive to reproduce and thus only some 92 of those will contribute in the future to the preservation of the species. Yet, it is needless to say that the work he is doing here is extremely valuable and commendable. * I believe, there is a great deal that I can learn from him concerning turtles and community-based conservation, so I may be staying in San Diego for a time.
In summary, U.S. AID who has the money behind the 1-year project has come into the area and essentially taken over the hatchery ignoring the local people who previously supported the hatchery and conservation of turtles when there wasn’t money. They have chosen not to work with the local organization, CODEPA, which led the previous turtle conservation projects in the area. It is needless to say that these local experts associated with CODEPA are furious that they have not been included. To many of them, I am a symbol of the foreigners that are now running the turtle projects from a far even though I do not actually work for any of those organizations, just with them. In the more than 3 weeks that I was there, I was just beginning to get the message across to the local people that I was simply a volunteer looking to study the turtles and aid the turtle conservation in the area in as well.
Additionally inhibiting the progress of turtle conservation in the area and my ability to be of help is the current economic situation on the island and really in all of El Salvador. We think that the economy is bad in the United States, well our gov. at least has the ability to aid its own people. Here the government is largely reliant on international organizations to come to their people’s rescue. Unfortunately, the people in the community of la Pirraya, where I lived, being that they are isolated, seem to be some of the last to get any aid. The resulting economic situation has created a tremendous pressure on the fishing industry in the bay, which was already suffering from overfishing. Seeing that nearly all of the families are composed of fishermen there is a real crisis at hand.
How is this related to turtles? Well a fisherman I am told is lucky to earn $5-10 a day from fishing, as there are fewer and fewer fish and they get less for their caught. Seeing that turtle eggs can sell for well over $3 a dozen at restaurants and when a single hawksbill turtle can lay well over 150 eggs, being a tortuguero can be very lucrative. For this reason, there are well over 200 tortugueros (egg collectors) on the island. For many of the people on the island, the money they earn that day is all they have to survive. With this sort of economic pressure, it is hard for a person quite reasonably to be concerned with turtles. The hatchery where I worked does in fact pay the collectors that bring the eggs to the hatchery but this money comes from U.S. AID who has to send a representative from the capital. The money they pay is not only below the market price, but it takes a week to come. For these reasons the collectors that do come to the hatchery are only those that have installed in them a sense of responsibility to the turtles. For the rest the economic factors prove to be overwhelming.
In my time on the island, we received 3 nests in total of which, 2 were carey or hawksbill, and the other golfina or olive ridley. Although, there hasn’t been a lot of nesting thus far in the season there should be many more eggs Mike, my American contact and a hawksbill researcher tells me. According to him, we should have half of the total eggs that are normally received in a single season by this time. The day I left on July 6 we had 2,136 huevos (eggs) in the hatchery and we had encountered zero turtles during our night walks. To put the stats into perspective, last year they had 60 hawksbills, 8 green turtles, and 850 olive ridleys. This year, in May there was 1 turtle and in June there were 6. It is needless to say that there are fewer turtles that are being reported or seen by the viveristas (hatchery workers) and more importantly, fewer eggs actually being brought into the hatchery. I believe this to be a result of fewer people reporting turtle sightings and fewer people being obligated to bring eggs to the hatchery. This quite simply is a result of fewer people working together on the project. Nefta, Moises and myself, the only ones working on the project, are not a sufficient force to monitor the turtle population, patrol the beach and run the hatchery.
Sadly, there were several conversations I was witness to between tortugueros and my fellow hatchery workers, in which the tortugueros would talk openly about seeing a turtle, meaning they had collected the eggs yet I hadn’t ever seen them at the hatchery. Nefta, Moises and I, slept at the hatchery nearly every night and were always there during turtle hours (8 pm-8 am) in the case that a tortuguero had eggs. Unfortunately, the tortuegeros were choosing to sell them on the market to be eaten. Why haven’t they been brought in? Well as I stated earlier and I hope is now more evident, the coalition of tortugueros led by CODEPA that was active in previous years is not functioning. Additionally, the police are not getting involved and therefore the tortugueros now aren’t obligated to have a card that says they are registered to take eggs. Instead, it is a free for all and given the economy and lack of organization/support for the hatchery, few eggs are being brought to the hatchery. The people with a true wealth of knowledge of the turtles in the area, I would see around as they would talk to us, but they were not helping at the hatchery or patrolling the beach at night, as the had in the past.
As you hopefully realize now, it is a complicated situation there on the Island of San Sebastian and really no place for an inexperienced volunteer student. San Diego is a good alternative where I can get more experience both working with people, getting to know the turtles and improving my Spanish. Here with my own space, good living conditions, and more experienced, organized and respected individuals to work with, I have the ability to grow personally. After some time here I hope I can return to la Pirraya in the Bahia de Jiquilisco. For now, it is good that I am here.
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