Diana Vasquez grew up in the fishing village of El Aceituno, Honduras, where her grandfather was a fisherman. To this day, she clearly envisions her little world surrounded by “shells everywhere. There were thousands and thousands.”
“When I was a kid, the main street was covered with these white clam shells. And the walls of the houses – it was like a concrete of crushed shells. My grandmother built an outdoor bed of shells just to dry clothes because shells absorb the heat of the sun.”
But under the pressures of overfishing, pollution, and climate change, El Aceituno is a shadow of its former self. Once a vigorous artisanal fishing community, it has diminished greatly.
Today, motivated by a love of country, a connection with the ocean and those who live from it, Vasquez advocates for the fishing communities of Central America with nonprofit global environmental organization, “Rare.” The mid-sized NGO (FY2022 budget $32 million) is based in Arlington, Virginia. Grants from governments and foundations as well as contributions from individuals support Rare’s global staff of 178 with their environmental work, on both land and sea. This includes not only the time-tested work of grass roots organization, but also the scientific gathering and sharing of data about the state of waters, the creatures that live in them, and the families dependent upon a robust catch to provide food to their families and beyond.
All over Honduras, communities now need to mobilize to hold on to their coastal livelihoods in the face of not only climate pressures but also the impact of overfishing, great and small – from big commercial trawlers to local fishermen. Vasquez has been helping community groups there to organize and work with their government to produce outcomes that preserve their unique way of life, born of the link between ocean and culture.
The challenge is not peculiar to just Honduras or even just Central America. The U.N. this summer advanced its global “Blue Transformation” endeavor, to, as it says, “enhance the potential of food systems underwater and feed the world’s growing population sustainably.”
There have been few times in contemporary history where the hard work of ocean preservation, marine biodiversity restoration and sustaining global food supply have intersected in the kind of perfect storm now facing the planet.