Guaymas Road Trip

So we headed out on our first road trip to see :
- the manager of WWF Gulf of California Mexico
- land use of the coast from Bahia de Kino to Guaymas
- to visit visit with Anna-Louisa Figaro, The director of Flora and Fauna of the Islands of the Gulf of California
- to see the Estero Tastiorta
- to see the city of Guaymas and San Carlos

We started the trip by visiting the WWF ( World Wildlife Foundation). Their office is in San Carlos which is 15 miles north of Guaymas. These are some of my notes from the WWF presentation are:
- 9 people work in their office
- Their focus is on responding to expansion of agriculture, deforestation, aquaculture and alteration of habitat
- They mentioned many projects that they are working on which include:
*education comic to inform fishermen about no-take zones, environmental impact of fishing, and marine environemtnal laws
*research on designing a new fishing hook that would be less likely to kill a sea turtle if caught
*research on how trawling effects environment in order to reduce bycatch
*new designed shrimp cages for artisanal fishers
- They also had specific targets which included specific species and ecosystems such as:
*coastal wetlands
*rocky bottoms and reefs
*sandy bottoms
*pelagic fishes
*Vaquita
*sea turtles
- Their strategies for protecting these targets where:
* effective management of Marine Protected Areas
*Regulation and regionalization of small scale fisheries
*watershed management
*aquaculture management

After this meeting we went into the port of Guymas to see a historical port and the industries that are there.
We started at the central city square where there were statues of all the Mexican presidents that had been from Guaymas. Here we got a little background on the history of the city. Guaymas before european presence was Yaqui territory. The rest of the timeline is as follows:

- 1539: Ulloa claimed port for Spain
-1500s: explores secured ports in Mexico
-1600-1700: jesuit priests established important missions in Guaymas
- 1700s: agriculutural growth and fishing
-1800s: railroad stop established in Guaymas, population reaches 4,000
-1900s: industrial growth
-1960: PEMEX oil refinery/electricity generator built in city
- 1970: fiberglass pangas introduced to fishing in the area ( before this wooden pangas were used = quick evolution of panga technology)
-now: 200,000 population, imporant martime transport base, navy base, fish processing

Guaymas is an important division between the northern and southern gulf ecosystems. ( city hall)
From the city plaza we walked to where we could see the harbor better. From here we talked about the harbor and PEMEX station but I'm going to jump to the sewage "treatment" ponds because I think this is one of the most interesting things about Guaymas

Guaymas has city sewage plumbing but no sewage treatment center. Initially, before 2000, the city was directly dumping all city sewage in the ocean but this obviously became a sanitation problem. So in 2000, they decided to sacrifice a estuary for treatment ponds which are only primary treatment of the sewage. This means they only remove large objects, sand, and sedimentation.
There are three of these ponds which lie on a negative incline out to the ocean. These ponds filter the 11 cubic ton of sewage that is dumped into them each year. It is sad to think that before 2000 this valley was an estuary and sanctuary to many migratory birds. The stench of these ponds is indescribable. I'll I can say is that the only kind of creature that enjoys this kind of habitat is :
( a pig)
There is no protection for this kind of treatment against natural disasters and in the past Guaymas has had sewage breaches when Hurricane pass through. From Guaymas we went to back to San Carlos.

The next day we met with Anna-Louisa Figaro who is the The director of Flora and Fauna of the Islands of the Gulf of California.

Rather than write the actual notes from her talk I think that it is more important to mention my impression of the talk. Coming out of the meeting, my first thought was that conservation efforts all over the world need dynamic and engaging personalities like Anna Louisa- Figaro. She has been able to bring together many different groups which include NGOs and many different governmental agencies and has fostered communication within these entities in order to make conservation efforts happen...this is definitely a large light a hope in what what can be a depressing cloud of failure to protect our natural resources. She is also able to look at the whole picture of what is involved with a conservation effort such as: the research of natural resources, the resources themselves, the community affecting the resources, the community involvement protecting these resources, governmental enforcement to protect these resources, community education etc.

After meeting with Anna Lousia Figaro we went to Tastiota which is a small community on the coast which has been devastated by big business aquaculture. Tastiota is a village of 30-70 people which lies on an estuary. This estuary is home to 17 different species of nesting birds, crabs, the nursery for many different invertebrates.

Aquaculture is exploded out of the estuary to the point that saying it is disgusting is an understatement. Even though the aquaculture hasn't bulldozed the estuary itself they are still dumping their pond water into the estuary. This is causing sediment build up within the estuary. When we walked out to the ocean we could see the darkened waters that were flowing from the estuary.The people of Tastiota have traditionally fished for crab out in the ocean and done very small scale oyster farming. However they are not able to do this anymore because they are no longer to get their boats out to the ocean due to the sediment build up in the estuary. They are also not able to farm oysters because the oysters are dying out due to the fact that they are filter feeders.

This town is fighting back. Even though this estuary fell through the cracks of environmental conservation it can still be saved by the people of Tastiota. They have hired a lawyer to try to take on the big corporations who are ruining their livelihood.
(snowy egret)

After this trip I came away with many feelings of hopefulness from the dynamic environmental leaders that we met but also sadness from the environmental disasters that we saw such as the the Tastiota aquaculture and Guaymas dump. This trip showed me that there is a pressing need for biological research of coastal ecosystems and a need for NGO involvement for protecting coastal ecosystems.

I also had a conversation at Tastiota which is important to reiterate here:
I also feel that we no longer can wait around for communication to happen between governmental agencies, NGOs and scientists. We do not have the time for people to start caring about the natural resources that we are exploiting. We need change now or the opportunity to save some of the most biologically diverse environments will fade away. Watching aquaculture farms take over the desert breaks my heart. It blows my mind away how people can be so driven by money and greed. We are facing a tragedy of the commons on every scale by our loss of global natural habitat. The future is dependent on radical action to conserve the organisms and ecosystems that we haven't already destroyed.