WUNRN
MEXICO - FISHERWOMEN'S COOPERATIVE
ADAPTS TO CLIMATE CHANGE
By Emilio Godoy
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SAN FELIPE,
Mexico, Aug 24, 2011 (IPS) - Every night, Adlemi Marrufo goes out to catch bait
crabs used to fish for octopus in this small seaside town and others along
Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, as part of a women's cooperative that is working to
adapt to and fight climate change.
The longnose
spider crab (Libinia dubia), known locally as the "maxquil" crab, is
fished from August to December in San Felipe, where Marrufo, who everyone calls
"Doña More", has been mayor since 2010.
"We
haven't received support, and I think it would be difficult to get any. Even in
our community, we have problems with the men, who wonder how we can do their
work," Marrufo tells IPS as she gets her fishing gear ready on her boat,
"Rebeca".
In 1999, she
was one of the founders of the Mujeres Trabajadoras del Mar cooperative,
currently made up of 13 fisherwomen.
The women's
cooperative emerged as a collective effort to adapt to climate change, the
effects of which are increasingly being felt on the coast of the Gulf of
Mexico, which bathes the shores of this fishing village at the top of the
San Felipe,
which has a population of 1,850, is one of the 25 coastal towns in
Credit:
Courtesy of Teresa Munguía /Sinergia |
|
In
2002, Hurricane Isidore devastated 90 percent of the plants along the coast,
including the mangroves lining the edges of the huge nearby lagoon.
The women in
the cooperative, who were trained in "mangrove ecology" a year after
the hurricane, have played a key role in restoring the mangroves, which are
vital to keeping water temperatures from climbing too high in the lagoon, an
important breeding ground for species ranging from lobsters to the longnose
spider crab.
But here, as
in the rest of
However,
like the fisherwomen of San Felipe, women in communities affected by climate
change are slowly starting to organise and get involved in adaptation and mitigation measures.
"There
is concern because the changes affect productive and conservation activities.
The marginalisation that many poor women face heightens the impact, because it
undermines their capacity to deal with the effects of climate change,"
Teresa Munguía, a representative of Sinergia, a collective of women working on
sustainable development and gender issues, told IPS.
Sinergia and
the Red de Género y Medio Ambiente (Gender and
Environment Network) are working in the area to identify the needs and
unfulfilled rights of women, raise awareness on climate change, and help design
initiatives and proposals that include women.
Munguía was
one of the authors of a report on "contributions from community-based
experiences to climate change adaptation strategies in
"We
have been seeing the negative effects of climate change for a long time now,
along with problems in terms of gender equality and empowerment of women,"
Itzá Castañeda, gender adviser at the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) Mexico
country office, told IPS
Castañeda
said women from habitats that are especially vulnerable to global warming,
especially rural and coastal areas, "have been adapting since long before
it was called climate change, by adapting seeds, to mention one example."
"Decisions
that don't take women into account cannot be adopted, because women are the
most exposed to the impact of climate change," Greenpeace Mexico spokeswoman Cecilia Navarro
told IPS. "They live in the most degraded ecosystems, on land where they
face precarious soil conditions and scarcity of water.
"By
including a gender angle, we are going to bring about climate justice for the
most vulnerable, and help tip the climate balance," she added.
The gender
deficit is visible in the Special Programme on Climate Change drawn up by the
Mexican government in 2009, and in the programmes that are gradually being
adopted in some of
But some
women refuse to sit back and do nothing. In San Felipe, the members of the
cooperative have organised to carry out activities like waste separation and
management and environmental clean-up efforts, said the 45-year-old Doña More –
who comes from a family of fishers and is married to a fisherman.
The women
continue these activities during crabbing season, when they go out in their
boats from 9:00 pm to 5:00 am, coming back with 40 to 50 kg of crabs, which
they sell for 1.60 dollar per kg, before hurrying home to make breakfast for
their children and get them off to school.
Crab fishing
season coincides with hurricane season in the
The study by
the Gender and Environment Network says "women are in a position of
greater social vulnerability due to the rigid gender roles that persist in local
communities and relegate them to a subordinate position in decision-making, and
they are aware of this."
In 2010, the
Mexican government, academics and representatives of civil society produced the
Mexican Declaration on Gender and
Climate Change, which called for policies with a gender focus,
adaptation and mitigation efforts, and the necessary funding.
The
declaration was presented during the United Nations Climate Change Conference
(COP16) held in
Four million
of Mexico's 112 million people live in the 25 coastal municipalities most
vulnerable to the effects of global warming, according to the 2009 report
"La economía del cambio climático en México" (The Economics of
Climate Change in Mexico), commissioned by the Mexican government.
The 37,000
households and economic activities worth more than four billion dollars a year
in those 25 municipalities are thus at high risk.
Against that
backdrop, community-based experiences like the Mujeres Trabajadoras del Mar
cooperative make a useful contribution to the design of public policies.
"There
are species that used to be fished along shore that I no longer see, and the
number of fishers using criticised technologies and methods has increased,
while we all have to go further out to sea now," Marrufo said.
"I'm
going to seek funding to continue the reforestation work. I've been looking
into tourism possibilities; this town has a wealth that is unknown to
many," the mayor added.
She also
said the town has limited the capture of longnose spider crabs to local
consumption, despite the high demand from neighbouring fishing villages, in
order to protect the species and preserve local biodiversity.
The women in
the cooperative are calling for the local coastal development programme to
include child care centres, training in climate change-related issues, and
diversification of economic activities.
"The
main problem is the relation between economic activities and poverty,"
said Sinergia's Munguía. "Women are aware of what climate change means and
how it modifies the ecosystem, which they want to protect, but there is also
the question of survival."