We are in the town of Huaquillas, near Ecuador’s southern border with Peru, after a sphincter-tightening four-hour minibus ride from Guayaquil on a highway where every driver seemed to think he was Ayrton Senna. We are sitting on the porch of a roadside cantina, eating plantain soup, smashing cooked mud crab with a wooden hammer and talking to the owner, Pedro Ordinola, defender of mangroves.

Pedro has a fight on his hands: a fight with Big Shrimp. Ecuador is one of the biggest exporters of farmed shrimp in the Americas. Within Ecuador, this southern region is seeing some of the most rapid expansion of shrimp farming, and an associated loss of mangrove forests. The law in Ecuador says that mangroves shall not be cut down, but, perhaps because this is a border town, the law seems to have a flexible interpretation here.

It is not just the physical removal of mangroves that is the problem, Pedro tells us. It is the transfer of title to private companies of public land. Every year, mangrove lands that have traditionally been used by crab and conch collectors are declared off limits by shrimp operators.

Barbed wire is strung through estuaries. Guard dogs roam the farm perimeters. Armed security guards fire at trespassers. “You can’t get within five metres of a shrimp farm before they start shooting,” Pedro said. He showed us a map of the islands and estuaries along the Pacific Coast. Where there was a carpet of green in 1969, 30 years later a red stain of shrimp ponds had spread across the area.

In 2002, Pedro formed an association of crab collectors to defend the disappearing mangroves. “I got tired of filing complaints,” he said. “A complaint is like putting money in a corrupt official’s pocket.” He would file a protest, an official would make a show of investigating it, money would change hands, the complaint would evaporate into the fog of officialdom.

In some ways, Pedro is an unlikely champion for the rainforests of the sea. He was born in Ecuador’s high sierra, far from the sea. A drought drove his family to the coast in 1978, when Pedro was 12. Even at that age, he says, he felt an affinity for trees, and understood that when you lose a forest you lose part of yourself.

It is common practice in Latin America to name things after important dates, so Pedro chose 15 de Enero, January 15, as the name of the group. January 15 is the start of the closed season for crabbing. The closed season ensures the survival of the crab fishery. Pedro’s association seeks the survival of the crabs’ home, the mangroves.

It has not been an easy road. He has had his share of threats, and a few carrots have been dangled in front of him, too. One time he was offered a second storey on his house if he would stop opposing shrimp farmers. Money talks, but it doesn’t drown out the voice of those who have been killed or maimed for their opposition to shrimp. Last year a conchero, a cockle collector, died from shots fired by a shrimp security guard. In another incident, in Peurto Bolivar, to the north, a perro asasino, an attack dog, was set on a cockle collector, and killed him.

I asked Pedro what keeps him going—what makes him get up in the morning and spend another day standing up to a concerted and powerful opposition. He shrugged and said he didn’t really know, but that, God willing, he would continue his work. I suspect the reason lies in one of the mottos of his group, which I saw on a placard: El manglar es nuestra casa. Protégelo y nos alimentará. The mangrove is our home. Protect it and it will feed us.

Tomorrow Pedro will take us into the mangroves that he and his association fight to protect.

Tags: Ecuador, shrimp farms

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