For 23 years, Cándido Hernández and his family have lived off what the mangrove provides; José, in spite of his 90 years, wakes up every day at 4 a.m., puts on his rubber boots, grabs his machete, sacks, and wooden trap-boxes for catching crabs, drifts into the mangrove channels on a wooden cayuco, or small canoe, and disappears for hours, trapping crabs and digging clams out of the mud, working among the roots of the red mangrove trees that rise as high as 30 meters overhead.
Marta Alicia, a local community leader, navigates the mangrove channels every day with her grandson Diego, 4 years old, to teach him how to harvest clams, to show him his land and how to care for it. Marta and Cándido walk around the small islands carrying a tablet and photographing the trees toppled by the strong winds or fallen over from the fragility of their roots. They don’t want the authorities to think that the community has illegally cut the mangrove trees that give them life. Marta and Cándido, and the other 29 families in the community, have been scared ever since the mangroves started to die.
The forest forms part of a brackish swamp that spans more than 20,000 hectares where fresh and saltwater mix, and is located on the San Juan del Gozo peninsula on El Salvador’s southern coast, in the region known as the Bajo Lempa, or lower Lempa River valley. The forest here belongs to the largest and most important mangrove ecosystem on Central America’s Pacific coast: the Bahía de Jiquilisco complex, in the department of Usulután. In 2001, the community of La Tirana, a small hamlet nestled in the arid lowlands and surrounded by mangroves, was founded on land donated by the Salvadoran Institute of Agrarian Transformation. Over time, the community grew into a small canton located about 25 kilometers south of San Marcos Lempa and El Salvador’s Litoral Highway.
Since October 31, 2005, the mangrove has been categorized as a Ramsar site due to its size and capacity to host dozens of species of birds, mammals and marine life. The Ramsar category is a designation conferred by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, an international treaty endorsed by UNESCO, which commits member countries to work to prevent the degradation of wetlands. Jiquilisco Bay, because of its sandy surface, is considered the most endangered ecosystem in all of El Salvador, a country that has lost more than 60 percent of its mangroves since 1950.
In the case of the La Tirana, inhabitants began noticing the loss of hundreds of red mangrove trees, in tandem with the rising tides, more than ten years ago. Organizations like the Asociación Mangle (Mangrove Association) and the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology (CESTA), a chapter of Friends of the Earth International, warn that the rising sea level has negatively affected the mangrove, which is susceptible to changes in salinity and the structure of nearby beaches that suffer from rising sea levels, which have already swept away ranches and houses in the area. Using historical satellite images provided by Google Earth from 2002 to 2023, El Faro confirmed that the sea has been eating away the mangrove.
The La Tirana mangrove forest has lost ground along a 3.5 kilometer stretch of Salvadoran coastline. According to international projections, the outlook for this and other mangrove forests around the world is not good. A study conducted by the geography department of the National University of Singapore concluded that climate change is having numerous impacts on mangrove forests and estimated that the speed of sea level rise is one of the key factors that will determine the survival of mangroves worldwide. Reports from the NASA Earth Observatory show that long-term changes in the average global sea level are predominantly driven by two processes: the thermal expansion of ocean water as it absorbs heat, and the addition of freshwater to the ocean due to the melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
El Faro asked El Salvador’s Ministry of Environment if they had any strategy for stopping the deterioration of the mangrove in La Tirana, but did not receive a reply.
In El Salvador, NASA, working in collaboration with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, measures sea levels in Acajutla and La Unión to document the rising tides. From 2020 onward, they projected increases of 4.3 millimeters per year in Acajutla. In La Unión, the projection is 4 millimeters per year. The impacts of sea level rise are not the same everywhere in the world; it is the coastal lowlands and unprotected areas that are most at risk. The system for measuring sea levels was first developed globally 32 years ago, but it was not implemented in El Salvador until four years ago. In La Tirana, Cándido, José and Marta Alicia have no need to see the numbers. Every morning that they go out, every time they photograph a fallen tree or find fewer crabs, they know that the mangrove is dying, because they know the forest like the yellow-naped parrots that once thrived here, but which now are nowhere to be seen.
More than three kilometers of coastal mangrove forest have died since 2010 in the westernmost area of the San Juan de Gozo peninsula, in Jiquilisco. The area exhibits two major problems that, according to the Mangrove Association, have impacted the life and biodiversity of the forest here. The first cause, according to a study by Texas A&M University, is the forest’s proximity to the mouth of the Lempa River, which leaves the mangrove exposed to high sediment loads and geographical changes in the coastal landscape; the second is that, because of the encroaching waves and rising sea level, marine sediments are dragged into the shore, creating larger beaches and introducing a heavier load of salinity into the brackish mangrove swamp, where the trees grow in a balanced mixture of fresh and saltwater.
On the beach, where a little more than a decade ago there was mud and forest, hundreds of dry red mangrove trunks still protrude from the sand. The mangrove once extended to where the beach and sea now meet. According to locals, the Yellow-naped Parrot used to live in the area, but with the death of the mangroves, the bird moved its nesting grounds elsewhere, and now is hardly anywhere to be seen. This sector is part of the second Jiquilisco Bay complex, a bioreserve designated for protection by El Salvador in 2005, when it was established as a Ramsar site due to its global importance and ability to host dozens of species of birds and other wildlife.
Marta Alicia Rivera is the president of the Community Development Association (Adesco) in La Tirana, and, along with her husband, Cándido Hernández, one of the first inhabitants of the area. She remembers how more than 15 years ago, on Puerta Escondida beach, about 15 minutes by car from La Tirana, there were once families living on ranches that have since been abandoned due to the rising tides that battered the brick and concrete walls of the homes originally built many meters away from the beach. “People from the area used to come here to go on walks. There was life, and a few families lived here, but now there are just a handful of walls because everything else was washed away by the sea,” she says.
Years ago, these structures were homes inhabited by families on the beach near the mangrove swamp, until the rising tides made them unlivable. According to projections by NASA, the area’s sea level has risen 4.3 millimeters every year per measurements taken in Acajutla, and 4 millimeters every year per measurements taken in La Unión. In El Salvador, researchers have been measuring sea level for four years, but studies began globally in the 1990s. In just the past decade, global sea level has increased by 3.9 millimeters per year.
Cándido Hernández sets traps to catch crabs in the mangrove. He sets at least 50 traps every day during the season, which begins in March. The crabs are sold in the local market for $5 USD a dozen and, when the season is at its peak and the mangrove is generous, it yields Cándido up to 36 crabs a day, which brings in $15 for his family. “That’s one of the reasons we need to take care of the mangroves,” he says. “Just like they feed my family, they must also feed many more who live in the mangroves, which is why, if these places disappear, our children and grandchildren will have nothing to live on.”
The acres of mangrove forest in Jiquilisco Bay are home to several species of birds that nest or migrate from other parts of the Americas. Among the most common are the snowy egret (a small white heron with yellow feet) and the migratory blue heron, named for its dark blue feathers acquired in adulthood. The yellow-naped parrot was once one of the most common birds in the mangroves near La Tirana, but with the loss of the forest, it is now considered an endangered species in El Salvador.
Clams are the only mollusk harvested from the mangrove and sold by residents of La Tirana. The traditional clam of the Jiquilisco Bay mangroves is not found in this area because the sea water here has less salinity, since it mixes with the fresh water from the mouth of the Lempa River. In order to sell the clams, residents must fill a 100-pound sack. It takes a single person up to three days to collect enough clams to fill a sack, which sells for $18.
According to El Salvador’s Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources, mangroves act as filters that prevent salt intrusion into the aquifers and favor water recharge. In La Tirana, families had to find ways to obtain fresh water for consumption. They did this by drilling wells, and were able to drink the extracted water for a few years. Over time, however, most of the wells began to salinize. Now, only the water from Cándido’s family well produces fresh water for drinking. The water from the rest of the wells is only used for washing clothes.
Marta Alicia and Cándido keep a record of the trees that have fallen down due to soil erosion or the force of the wind. Logging and timber extraction in protected areas like this one is punishable under the Natural Areas Law, with fines of up to 10 minimum monthly salaries for minor offenses. The register of fallen trees is used by inhabitants of La Tirana to prove to authorities that a tree was not felled, and can be removed from the mangrove to keep the canals clear.
From the tops of the red mangrove trees, a hanging seedling is released, which falls into the mud and over time takes root and gives life to new trees. This is a natural process by which the mangroves can recover on their own, but according to the Ministry of Environment, due to the effects of climate change, it is increasingly difficult for mangrove ecosystems to recover. In the area around La Tirana, it is increasingly rare to see images like this. “Of all of these, only the ones that grow at least two meters tall will survive, because the rising tide drowns them and only a small shoot remains, which will eventually dry up,” explains Cándido.
José Rivera, 90 years old, is the oldest fisherman and curilero, or blood-clam harvester, in La Tirana, where he settled 23 years ago with his daughter and son-in-law. For as long as he can remember, he has been waking up at dawn to hunt for crabs, and for more than two decades, he has navigated every channel of the mangrove that has sustained his family economically. “Apparently, the mangrove is also getting old like me. There’s an area that’s drying up and you have to look harder and harder to find crabs. It’s unfortunate, because this place kept us from going hungry for many years,” says José as he rests among the mangrove roots after a day of catching crabs.
*Translated by Max Granger
Support Independent Journalism in Central America
For the price of a coffee per month, help fund independent Central American journalism that monitors the powerful, exposes wrongdoing, and explains the most complex social phenomena, with the goal of building a better-informed public square.
Support Central American journalism.Cancel anytime.
