El Salvador is generously endowed with mangrove forests, coral-laden coastline, rich watersheds, and other natural resources. But some of its choicest land and sea has been blighted at the hands of opportunists as well as hard pressed, impoverished citizens.
State-owned mangroves have been razed for farming, cut down for building wood and firewood, and exploited for hunting and poaching. Farmers struggling to eke out a living are selling land to housing developers in areas near sensitive parks, forests, and beaches. The eggs of critically endangered hawksbill turtles are being taken for food.
But the country's attitude toward nature is changing as many of those same local stakeholders are now realizing tangible economic benefits by improving their watershed management and conserving biological resources.
On June 10, 2009, the Government of El Salvador, assisted by DAI's Improved Management and Conservation of Critical Watersheds (IMCCW) project, completed the demarcation of its first Marine Protected Area, the 213-square kilometer Los C'banos reserve. The signature moment came when a fourth 17-foot-tall, yellow polyethylene buoy was anchored off the coast in the Pacific Ocean, officially segregating the newly protected zone.
Although conservation efforts in El Salvador date back to 1940, establishing a protected area was no small task. Most state-owned lands were not legally registered as such. Some parcels within public areas were registered as private lands, and vice versa. Maps were inaccurate and protected areas improperly registered.
IMCCW staff met weekly for a full year with officials from the Salvadoran government to develop practical regulations for protecting natural areas and a comprehensive process for untangling the administrative mess. The team undertook cadastral and legal-status studies of each property and established protocols to deal with problems, creating new legal instruments where necessary and applying existing tools where appropriate.
In December 2007, the Government declared Los C'banos a protected area. To back up this declaration, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded IMCCW provided technical support such as geographic information system charts of the Los C'banos seabed and seven feeder streams emptying into the reserve.
DAI also orchestrated the bidding process and selected partners to carry out the tasks required to mark the territory and secure the buoys. DAI surveyors, working under Ministry of the Environment supervision, marked the boundaries of the land portion, while staff educators, nongovernmental organizations, and local governments trained affected communities on environmental management. Crucially, because any development plan that ignores local livelihoods is bound to invite further depredation of the conserved area, the project teams took steps to boost sustainable local incomes by championing small-scale ecotourism and low-input horticulture.
When it was time to mark the marine boundaries, IMCCW researched national laws, international regulations, technical specifications, oceanographic characteristics, official permits, and bidding procedures. Staff met with fishing cooperatives to ensure they would be able to continue pursuing livelihoods in harmony with the protected area.
Now that the buoys are in place, IMCCW is helping the Ministry of the Environment develop a participatory management plan for artisanal fisheries, land use, ecotourism, and other sustainable activities.
One new business, Los C'banos Tours, is run by local young people trained to offer a variety of touring experiences: snorkeling at the beaches of La Privada and El Amor, diving to see the Sheriff Gone shipwreck, searching for marine life such as hunchback whales, trekking along the protected area, and boating along the coast. These products are marketed through various tourism channels.
Many local farmers are now using their land to grow less destructive, more profitable products such as certified, environmentally friendly coffees and higher-quality fruits and vegetables and using the environmentally sound practices needed to access both domestic and international markets.
Placing the last buoy to mark the boundaries of Los C'banos is a milestone in the effort to preserve El Salvador's natural heritage. Los C'banos sandy shores and volcanic rocks will remain nesting beaches and feeding grounds for the hawksbill turtles "the largest population of hawksbills in the eastern Pacific" while its mangroves are increasingly recognized by ordinary Salvadorans as national jewels of biodiversity.
