Here the electricity goes out at 11 at night and returns at 6 in the morning. The moment the fishermen get up, the lights of dozens of houses illuminate a side of the island that is still in the dark. In this lobster-catching season, the lights come on two hours early. These are important weeks for those who live in Isla Natividad.
Getting to this portion of land in the North Pacific, near Baja California Sur, requires a 40-minute boat ride. The only access is a pier with the width of a road that goes steeply down to the sea. The nearly 700 people that inhabit it dedicate their days to fishing, from catching to diving, the processing plant and other small crafts. No one is unknown here. Everyone is a first, second or third generation; sons, daughters, grandchildren and granddaughters of the fishermen who for 80 years have formed the Cooperative Society of Divers and Fishermen of Isla Natividad.
When Ramón Martínez arrived after graduating as a biologist, he already knew that his life would be like. He had left at the age of 9 because his father retired and, as with the rest of the retired fishermen, he had to return to the mainland. “My dad was a partner, my grandfather was a partner too, in this case I'm a third generation,” he explains when asked about his family fishermen.
Ramón's brother had returned to become a member of the cooperative and he, for his part, moved further north to attend the Autonomous University of Baja California, in Ensenada. Despite the distance, he did not lose contact with the island and unlike other of his colleagues who stayed in the city after graduating, he decided to return.
But Ramón did not return to board boats and dedicate himself to catching lobster, white and abalone, which are the species that they take out of the seas at different times of the year, species of commercial value. His focus, on the other hand, was on science.
It was 2008 and its arrival coincided with a moment of urgency: since the late 90s, fishermen had low records of catching blue and yellow abalone (Haliotis fulgens and H. corrugata). Faced with concern for one of its most important resources, both economically and culturally, a local consultation had been held two years earlier and the Natividad Island cooperative assembly had suspended fishing in a couple of blocks.
A voluntary decision that would have economic and commercial repercussions, but would also bring a look at the sea like never before.
View of the town of Isla Natividad. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Fishermen move fuel. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Road on Nativity Island. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Stop fishing
In the town of Natividad, which barely occupies a tenth of the island, land and desert vegetation predominate, the cold blue of the landscape and the seagulls that walk confidently through the streets. There are also houses, boats and the odd number of vehicles, mainly motorcycles and pickup trucks; an entry-level school; a grocery store; a social security clinic —which, if not for the paint and signs, would look like just another house—; a restaurant and other makeshift cafeterias at the entrances of some homes.
To live on Natividad Island, you have to manage all your resources. An example is electricity that is generated based on fuel and that is why it has schedules. It also happens with food. What may be common for cities, such as vegetables, eggs and tortillas, is only obtained when it arrives at a warehouse on the island and is delivered in random shifts. The portions per family are always small: one kilo of tomatoes, five apples, half a kilo of eggs.
When scarcity begins, exchange emerges. “You don't pay what you borrow, you barter,” says Viviana Quezada from her home, whose entrance was adapted to serve as a cafeteria, with two large tables, shelves and a television.
Viviana shares that there are WhatsApp groups where women can ask their neighbors for some food, tools or any other need that arises on a daily basis. The meaning of what they call “cooperativism” is strong. The community, led by the fishermen's cooperative, is the one that sets its rules. There is no police, there is no government, only a sub-municipal delegate from Baja California Sur who comes to oversee.
It was under this sense of community that it was decided to seek alternatives to recover the fishery. Before, fishing for abalone was like fishing for gold. The boom in this catch in the 1950s led to the consolidation of fishing villages in the North Pacific. Isla Natividad was one of them. However, today those years remain in the memory of a golden age. The explanations for the decline in abalone range from overexploitation to pollution and alterations in cyclical water periods due to the El Niño and La Niña phenomena.
Although the main concern was abalone, in 2006 two blocks called La Plana/Cuevas and Punta Prieta became voluntary marine reserves from which they would gradually cease to be extracted. By 2010, fishing was completely stopped in these areas, even with a catch quota.
The decision was not hasty and it is this preventive capacity that is currently applauded by the Mexican fishing sector and the world towards this small community in the Northwest. “A lot of people think that when the reserves were created, the resource was in the ground, but that wasn't the case”, “the reserves were a tool that the cooperative implemented before reaching the loss,” some fishermen explain on a tour of the island.
Even before marine reserves, they sought the support of organizations that work in Baja California Sur, such as Community and Biodiversity AC (COBI), where a group of biologists have since collaborated in carrying out estimates, monitoring, training and other tools.
“We had to convince ourselves that it wasn't just about the pocket (money) that mattered in the present. It was necessary to think about the future of the resource,” recalls Roberky Vázquez, current secretary of administration of the fishing cooperative.
Fishermen from Isla Natividad. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Fisherman from Natividad Island. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
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According to a report published by COBI, six years after the suspension of fishing, it was reported that the marine reserves of La Plana/Cuevas and Punta Prieta had more resistant populations, both abalone and lobster.
In the case of La Plana/Cuevas, the average size of abalone from 2010 to 2016 was larger in the marine reserve compared to the other fishing sites surrounding the island. The abundance reported ranged from 20 organisms to 126 in a single aggregation. This was also demonstrated as a positive indicator for the species to reproduce.
During those same years, the organization trained a group of Natividad residents as instructor divers. This initiative would later be joined by a group of women, marking a milestone in roles within the community. Together they have worked to dive into the waters of the Pacific to identify what is happening to the reserves. Therefore, in addition to reviewing valuable species such as abalone and lobster, they have also been able to document the increase of other types of fish, invertebrates and algae.
Despite the advances, there are factors other than capture that have made the improvement process not linear. Some are changes in temperature in the waters or phenomena such as hypoxia that consist of the decrease of dissolved oxygen in seawater.
Seagulls fly on boats while catching lobster. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Inside the surveillance vessel of Isla Natividad. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Close to the voluntary marine reserves of Isla Natividad. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Artificial reefs
15 years after his return to Isla Natividad, Ramón is holding a pair of yellow and blue abalone shells in his hands. They are alive. He has momentarily removed them from some sheets arranged in large containers of water. It is an abalone culture inside the aquaculture laboratory where he is now the technician in charge.
Ramón walks among the containers and shows the different sizes while talking about oocytes, seeds and fertilization; about the differences between cultivated and wild abalone that grow in the sea; how they have experimented with releasing some larvae and juveniles that have been captured years later as mature species.
“We believe that we can contribute again so that abalone is that resource from which tons and tons were extracted,” says Ramón from the laboratory that, behind the protective blankets, allows us to see the ocean on the horizon. There they have also worked with sea cucumber and lobster. This is the contribution he had in mind since his university years.
The intention is not only to recover the species that grows in the sea, but to help cultivate from the laboratory. It's just that alongside the new goals, needs permeate.
“We need to grow but it's a huge investment and the government doesn't support us at all. From Tortugas Bay (in Baja California Sur) to here we are practically the most forgotten community in the entire state,” says Ramón.
To this he adds that the peculiarities of living on an island, such as the lack of connection and the limitations with the electricity supply, are characteristics of the place that become obstacles. If the laboratory were in another location, it is likely that abalone would have a chance of growing more there, but energy is needed to maintain low densities and achieve the objective.
So the plan is to breed them in the laboratory and then take them to artificial reefs that are already available thanks to an agreement with a specialist from the United States who donated the structures to them. In Mexico, these types of mechanisms have been implemented in places such as Veracruz since they allow them to serve as habitat and refuge for species. And this is the first time they have arrived at Isla Natividad under a community initiative.
“The important thing was to start the project because we weren't going to wait for reefs to build us to do it,” Ramón says.
For now, he describes, reefs are like mountable domes that they managed to build underwater. The plan is that by December they will have 10 of this type and there will be constant monitoring with the objective of growing to a commercial size. On average, between 300 and 400 abalone can be placed per structure.
Ramón takes out lab-grown abalone. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Juvenile abalone from the Natividad Island aquaculture laboratory. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
Processed wild abalone. Photo: Patricia Ramírez
“If the government doesn't take care of us...”
To live on Natividad Island, you have to follow the agreements. The main one is not to catch all the product that exists. Every season, internal capture programs are stipulated to establish the quotas of what will be extracted, otherwise, there will be reprimands. What is least tolerated is excessive fishing.
The goal is to continue to care for and invest. We invest in recovered species, but also in the inspection and surveillance of the entire island to prevent poachers from using up resources. In Mexico, where there is oversight by the corresponding authorities, has declined, and there are fewer and fewer inspectors, so Isla Natividad has had to allocate part of its expenses to compensate for it.
“If the government doesn't take care of us, we take care of ourselves,” says Roberky Vázquez, secretary of administration of the fishing cooperative, from a room with radio, monitors and sensors to detect boats. All the components of your surveillance system. They also have a boat with guards who take turns doing swerunts in the sea.
Just as it is being monitored, it has been decided to invest in science and education. Ramón's return to the island was a pause in the return of young people who wanted to study for a degree and return to the island. There are currently 27 students at the Autonomous University of Baja California to whom the fishing cooperative allocates a scholarship based on the requirements, such as a good average, Roberky says.
New generations of fishermen arrive on the island, but also of biologists, managers and accountants. Work is being done to make the abalone recover. And just as projects and challenges change, so does the view of the sea of the nearly 700 people who make up Natividad Island.
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