Several images from the DINE, Inc photo essay on a Navajo/Hopi effort to sustain their cultural heritage through agriculture were recently exhibited at Jennifer Schwartz Gallery where I also gave a talk as part of their Atlanta Celebrates Photography programing, and on November 19th, I’ll be part of Artists & Authors at Ferrin Gallery in Pittsfield, MA. And I’m looking forward to sharing it with others through other events and presentation opportunities we also have in the works.

http://www.mountainfilm.org/node/1887

Mountainfilm’s website: http://www.mountainfilm.org

This past weekend, I helped with photography at the TEDx event in Manhattan titled “Changing The Way we Eat”. I also showed a slideshow of my images of small farms during the afternoon intermission. If you missed the live feed you can view it all here: http://bit.ly/gzTMrD (my images appear for the first ten minutes of Session 3) and I’ve posted below the slideshow as it ran:

Here’s one of my favorites, in San Francisco in March:

It’s a simple post, but I’m always interested in how my work that is so much about the issues is received in the more artful art world context. Thanks, Constance, for the mention: Read Post.

Almejas Chocolata

Might be the Almehas Chocolata (Baja’s treasured Chocolate Clam, said to intoxicate with a longing to return to Loreto) or the can or two of Pacifico in my system (it’s 2pm and I have a long layover coming up at LAX), but whatever it is, I’m missing Loreto sooner, more deeply, with that gut feeling you get from love or nerves, and much more so than most of the travels that fill my passport. And, as though the pilot knew it, our near-empty plane took off headed to the northeast only to circle an almost perfect 360 degrees around Isla Coronado, an iconic Baja island just north of Loreto and the site of one of the trip’s many highlights: an overnight sea turtle monitoring training trip with Groupo Tortuguero de las Californias and Loreto-based fisherman turned eco-outfitter, Pancho Mayoral.

Local fisherman on the beach in Loreto

This trip to Loreto was my 10th site visit for Rare. Others have been to the Rio San Juan in Nicaragua; Wamba, Kenya; La Digue Island in the Seychelles; Indonesian Borneo; the Quijos Valley in Ecuador; the Janos prairies and Bahía de Kino in Mexico, and Crooked Tree and Cayo in Belize. All of these other visits have been to document the Pride Program specifically, but part of what appealed to me in Loreto was that it represents an evolution of Rare’s programmatics; one in which the community-level values and behavior change sought after by the Pride Campaigns are supported by the more practical, technical assistance provided by, in this case, the Fisheries Fellows Program. This promising combination, along with my intense personal interest in fisheries and the sustainability of the last significant source of wild food, has had me looking forward to this visit, literally, for the 5 years since I first heard about the Fisheries Fellows Program.

Fish ready for distribution at a Loreto fishing coop

Fisheries in the Sea of Cortez, as they are throughout Latin America and around the world, are collapsing. Groupers large enough to swallow a man (if they would), sharks, bill fish, tuna, and countless others of the iconic large predatory fish are all but gone. Nets are full (or not, as the case my be) with an assortment of smaller fish as fishermen are forced, literally, to fish down the food chain.

"Illegally", but not unsustainably, harvested clams.

Complicating the matter on a day to day basis for the fishermen is the fact that as the crisis becomes more clear, rules and regulations become more convoluted and complicated. The Almejas Chocolata I mentioned before, for example, is a staple species for the local economy, yet even though the fishermen have done there part, filling out paperwork and applying for their permits, the various government agencies have not done theirs. Before the permits can be granted – that is, before fishermen can legally fish for the clams – quotas simply need to be set and after months it’s still not happened. We bought our clams from a coop we knew where we could trust that, though they were not legal, they were harvested with at least the good intention of doing so sustainably.

Ulises Mendez meeting with the presidents of several fishing co-ops in Ligüi

Ulises Mendez has worked with Rare in Loreto as a Fisheries Fellow since 2006. The Fisheries Fellows program is designed to provide practical and technical assistance to help fishermen make the transition from fishing illegally as individuals to setting up licensed and properly permitted locally owned cooperatives. By improving the quality of the fisheries and restricting access to fishermen who agree to participate in its long-term sustainability, this effort is creating incentives for the fishermen in the form of ownership of a more valuable resource, while also helping to achieve more traditional conservation goals of ecosystem recovery.

Sand castle contest on the beach in Ligüi

Loreto is also now the home of a recent Rare Pride campaign. Two years ago Perla Lozano joined the Fisheries Fellow program along side Ulises to help address the broader issues of community support for such changes in fishing traditions in a traditional Mexican fishing town.

Mujeres del Golfo

One of the more innovative programs in the Loreto area is the Cooperativa Mujeres del Golfo, an all woman run cooperative that, while I was there, was focused on providing ornamental species to the aquarium fish trade. The women here don’t just work here – they also own this operation, often hiring other local fishermen, providing much needed additional streams of income to families in the small fishing village of Ligüi.

Francisco 'Paco' Fernandez of COBI

Much of the support brought to the Loreto area has also come from Francisco (Paco) Fernandez, project manager with COBI, an NGO focused on the intersections between community and biological diversity and one of Rare’s major partners in the efforts. Paco actually lived for 2 months in a van in Ligüi in order to get to know the locals and better understand their needs. During that time developed bonds within the community there that are both personal and professional.

Claudia Romero preparing for a biological monitoring dive

Another way of investing the local community in caring for its own resources is to include them in the biological monitoring that is essential to good conservation decisions. Claudia Romero is a member of the Mujeres del Golfo and lives in Ligüi with her husband who is also a fisherman. She is now certified for open water SCUBA and regularly helps with biodiversity surveys.

Training to lead tourists on sea turtle monitoring trips.

Other alternatives, such as eco tourism, may not directly displace the market for fish or the pressures on the fisheries, but they do involve community members in learning to appreciate the natural resources in an entirely different way. And they bring to the table a whole new suite of skills. Early in my visit I had the opportunity to go out with Pancho Mayoral on a training trip as part of his application to take tourists on sea turtle monitoring trips. Pancho and six other Loretanos spent the afternoon and all evening learning process and technique from Chuey Lucero from Groupo Tortuguero de las Californias. But they also contributed to the process, using their skills as fisherman to help net and tag 13 turtles in one night. The National Park rangers tagged only 4 all last year.

Chihuahua in Ligüi

Fishermen unloading the previous days catch in Loreto

A tagged and measured green sea turtle returning to the ocean

Paco Fernandez from COBI documenting a transect just off Isla Dansante

Ulises Mendez (Rare Fisheries Fellow) and Perla Lozano (Rare Pride Campaign Manager)