The coasts of Yucatán and Quintana Roo, habitat of the common Caribbean locust, were hit by Tropical Storm Alberto on June 19, by Hurricane Beryl on July 5; and by Hurricane Helene on September 25. Meteorological phenomena that hampered the development of lobster, and prevented its trade, especially to international markets.
This is what Manuel Mendoza, 69, has said, president of the Vigía Chico cooperative since 1989, who markets and exports Lobster (Panulirus argus) to China and Singapore.
“Our problem is the environment. The hurricane came, well, a storm, his name is Alberto, it flooded the entire Yucatan Peninsula and then the rains come out in the Caribbean Sea, and then the lobster is the enemy of fresh water, light and wind,” Mendoza explained.
The cooperative he manages is governed by sustainable fishing that cares for and respects the life cycles of the lobster and its habitat. If the crustacean is kept strong and large, it can be transported in containers that will cover great distances to reach its destination on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
Despite their efforts for sustainable fishing, weather events such as hurricanes affect lobster vitality.
“Buyers are not interested in weak lobster, because it doesn't arrive [alive] in Taiwan, it doesn't reach Singapore,” Mendoza warned.
How a hurricane works
In the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, hurricane season runs from June to November. The average is seven hurricanes per season, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). They may occur at another time of the year, but usually the highest number occurs in those months.
A hurricane is characterized by strong winds and heavy rain. They can cause significant damage due to their strength and the floods they cause. However, hurricanes are necessary, says Ruth Cerezo Motta, from the Engineering Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico of the Sisal Unit.
“They are necessary, let's say, it's something that happens naturally and they need to exist to maintain the balance between the warm of the tropics and the temperate of high latitudes,” Cerezo Motta said.
The impact can be devastating, especially in areas where infrastructure isn't ready to withstand its effects.
Global Warming
The Mendoza cooperative was not the only one affected by the hurricane. José Ángel de la Cruz Canto Noh, 56, president of the Cozumel Cooperative Fishery Production Society, also suffered from it.
“From July 1 to February 28, which is the lobster season for us commercially here in the Caribbean, off the coast of the Gulf and Caribbean of Mexico, the season of spiny lobster Panulirus argus, which is the Caribbean season. However, starting from the first day, we began to be affected, first by the hurricane that was coming and we started fishing until July 12,” explained de la Cruz.
Although there is already enough technology to track hurricanes and obtain information to make better decisions, climate change makes them increasingly unpredictable.
“Global warming is making, as I was telling you, more difficult to predict a lot of things. And many things that we understood how they happened, not only in terms of hurricanes, but other atmospheric processes that we understood how they happened, are no longer happening or are happening more intensely,” the researcher explained.
A hurricane requires some atmospheric instability and temperatures greater than 26 degrees Celsius for it to occur. With global warming, the temperature increases and this allows greater stability in the atmosphere, preventing vertical movements that form and intensify hurricanes.
“Although there may no longer be hurricanes, when they do form, they are not only more intense, because the intensity only tells us about the speed of the winds, but that when it rains they bring more water than they used to,” said Ruth Cerezo.
Despite this poor prognosis, which directly affects fishing cooperatives, there is a solution: the care of the reef barrier. This prevents the waves from being so strong in the lobster habitat and thus it grows healthy to compete in international markets.
“We call them natural disasters and I think they are social disasters, because it comes from the fact that we settled where we shouldn't, we destroy natural protections, in the Caribbean we are destroying the reef barrier that protects us, very strong waves, we throw in the mangroves that protect us from the winds and... then when a storm comes, then of course it takes us to our homes and we continue to devastate the environment”, concluded the researcher.
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