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We’re reflecting on some of the conversations POCACITO was fortunate to be a part of, four of which we want to share with you. Two of these talks took place as part of POCACITO events, and two are one-to-one interviews.
One thing that kept coming up is that the critical work of environmental and climate justice is happening at the local level. And it’s being led by civil society.
We met with community organizers and activists from Kyiv; Berlin; St. James Parish, Louisiana; and Superior, Arizona, to learn what this work looks like, and how we can help.
Electronic music track X1 by frankum -- https://freesound.org/s/426470/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
So welcome everybody to this POCACITO podcast about nature based solutions. This is part of the German American Nature Based solutions exchange. My name is Max Grunig, speaking to you today from Charlottesville, Virginia in The United States, and I am on the phone here with my colleagues in Ecuador, and we're having a great conversation here about nature based solutions and socioeconomic aspects of these nature based solution projects in Ecuador specifically. Very happy to have here, first of all, Wendy Chavez with us on the phone. Wendy, how are you doing, and where where are you right now?
Wendy Chavez:Hello, everyone. Thank you, Max, for inviting us to the podcast. This is such an experience. So I am in Ecuador right now in the city of Guayaquil on the coast, and I we're here together in this podcast with people who I really love, and I am really happy that I've worked with them along the years. So we're gonna talk about projects that we have done in one community of coastal Ecuador.
Wendy Chavez:And for that, we have different guests here. I would say the first one here is Brian Flores, who is the school director of the Comunidad Isla Costa Rica, Isla Costa Rica community. And so I think we can start with him now.
Max Gruenig:Yeah. Brian, do you want to say a little bit about yourself, where you're from, and how you came to work with Wendy on, on on these projects?
Brian Flores:Of course. Firozal, I would like to say thank you very much for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be here and share a little about my community, my work, and our experiences. I feel very happy to participate in this space. My name is Brian Flores.
Brian Flores:I'm from a small community in the province of Santa Rosa. It is, Isla Costa Rica. Costa Isla Costa Rica Aisle. I am an economist and also a teacher. Currently, I work as a teacher and as the principal of the the school, which is the is the main school in the community.
Max Gruenig:Great. Excellent. And so this Islay, Costa Rica is the island where your project took or is taking place, if I understand this correctly. Right? How big is this island, and where where is this if we wanna picture it because we can't see it?
Max Gruenig:Is it far from the coast, or is it close to Guayaquil? Where can we imagine this?
Brian Flores:The the island is is very small, but the people is very kind, very worker, very happy. And it's a part of the territory, but it's difficult arrive to the island. No?
Max Gruenig:How many people live there approximately?
Brian Flores:Maybe, Wendy, you can help me.
Wendy Chavez:Yes. I mean, we we had a data from the census that we did in 2019, and we counted 500 people. Now we know definitely that there are more people and more houses. So maybe between 600 or so. We don't have the final data yet.
Wendy Chavez:But yes, I just wanted to say something very interesting and beautiful that Brian mentioned that it's not very easy to get to the island and it's because of the power and the magic of the tides because you need to have a high tide to go to go to the island, to get into the island, not in your boat. So you only can reach there by boat, and it's part of all the beauty of the island.
Max Gruenig:So, Brian, you were you born on the island? Are you from there?
Brian Flores:My mom and my grandfathers, they were from the island. My my father is from Machado, I started, out of the island, just to be for a the. Because when I were at school in the island, there aren't a secondary school. This we're only a basic school. So I started out of the school of the island.
Brian Flores:Sorry.
Max Gruenig:Of course. Of course. Yeah. That makes sense with the size of the island. So maybe we introduce so we have Christine Beitel, and maybe you can say how you're related to the project as well.
Christine Beitl:Sure. Yes. Hi. Thanks for having me here today. My name is Christine Beidl, and I'm an associate professor from the University of Maine.
Christine Beitl:I am an environmental anthropologist by training, and, I have, sort of a long history with Isla Costa Rica because I did my dissertation field research there, from 2009 to 2010. So, the school, I remember when I was there in 2009, only went to sixth grade, I think, or eighth grade. And now I know that they are they have the full high school, So that that's something I was thinking, about. Brian was, he was a I think you were in high school, Brian, when I was there as a student. But then when we went back later, you were already a teacher in the school, and now you are the principal of the school.
Christine Beitl:So and then and I've known your mother for a long time. She's my friend and Wendy's friend too. So, anyway, yeah, so that's my connection to the island. And I've had a a long interest in coastal conservation and restoration of mangroves and and in the country of Ecuador as I'm not Ecuadorian. So I've I first became aware of the challenges facing coastal communities when I was living in Waikiki, actually, even way before coming to know Isla Costa Rica way back in the nineteen nineties.
Christine Beitl:I was a student in Waikiki. So so, yeah, I'm I'm happy to to be here and reconnect with with everyone here on the call.
Max Gruenig:Yeah. Christine, so you're calling in from Maine, or are you in Ecuador?
Christine Beitl:Yes. I am in Maine.
Max Gruenig:Great. So maybe you can tell me a little bit about actually the project and why the project was decided to to happen. I mean, you already talked a little bit about your interest in coastal restoration and and mangrove ecology, but why this location, and what what was basically the the impetus for moving forward there? And then what's the goal of the project? And and maybe we can then also get everybody else in a little bit.
Christine Beitl:Yeah. Sure. The the project is based sort of in this maybe maybe emerged from these relationships that we developed through the years. I started my graduate studies in environmental anthropology in 2005. I knew I wanted to go back to Ecuador because like many of the countries around the world that have mangrove forests, The mangroves are being cleared for other uses, and and in particular, shrimp farming is one of the big reasons for converting these tropical coastal forests into, I guess, productive food systems largely for export.
Christine Beitl:So what made me interested in Ecuador was that I was reading about all these grassroots movements happening all over the coast of Ecuador and to the you know, these communities were organizing themselves to defend mangroves and livelihoods that support them. And I developed a dissertation project to study this, to explore the role of collective action and cooperation to promote the sustainability of our common pool resources. And then, when I started my fieldwork in 2009, I was introduced to people in East Costa Rica to the community leaders there, who was the president of the fishing association there. His name is Dono Dolso. I don't know if you remember him, Brian.
Christine Beitl:But, anyway, he, you know, introduced me to the rest of the community. I went to a meeting and presented my research ideas to the community saying I'm interested in learning from their firsthand experience, you know, living with this experience of this history of mangrove deforestation, how that affected their dependence on fisheries. And when I was in this meeting with all the members of the association, they they asked me to you know, I was offering, like, if I'm gonna be living here for a little while as an ethnographer, you know, what what kinds of things would you like me to do with the community? And they kept saying, we want you to teach our kids English. So we developed this, like, English language workshop for the kids, and we would after school, they would come to the cabana, which was there in front of Don Adolfo's house, and we would draw pictures and color, and I would teach them how to say how to describe their pictures in English.
Christine Beitl:And and that was just part of the ethnographic work that I was doing. And part of the you know, it was through this ethnographic work that I did with people in East Costa Rica that I learned all about, you know, this community spirit that I think Byron Brian has a lot to say about and the importance of of communities. Then we went back in 2019, for this, ethnographic field course. This was when Wendy came with me to, help me lead this course. We brought a group of students from Waiaquil, and it was to do, like, a community census and gather information about social networks because it was a it was contributing to a cross cultural longitudinal global study on social network analysis and how how people's social capital essentially contributes to wealth inequalities.
Christine Beitl:So we brought a group of students from Guayaquil to collect data for this project. And, again, with the same spirit of, like, being ethnographers in the place, thinking about, you know, our presence there not being completely extractive, but what can we do with the community? What could we bring back to the community? And with my students and Wendy, we had come up with a number of ideas for developing workshops. So Wendy was developing some workshops on political participation, and one of our students developed a workshop on growing various kinds of agricultural products.
Christine Beitl:And and then the because it was a longitudinal study, Wendy took over the project recently this year in 2026, and this is where Harry comes into the picture. She brought Harry and another student from Waikiki, and, again, worked with Brian and others from the school to come up with some ideas for projects that would be sort of, you know, community engagement kinds of projects that the group would do while they're they're collecting ethnographic data that supports this study on social capital.
Max Gruenig:So maybe then we can hear a little bit from Wendy how this is going at the moment. And also then, of course, already introduced, but we haven't said hello yet, Harry Harrow, the economist, also involved in the project. Harry, should we say hello first to you, and maybe you can say a little bit who you are and, where you're calling from today and how you got into this project.
Harry Haro:Well, hi, everyone. My name is Harry. I am so grateful for this opportunity to talk about my experience in Costa Rica Island project. I I mean, I'm an economist as you already said. I am from Guayaquil.
Harry Haro:So the first time I heard about this project was three years ago when I finished my my bachelor in economy. So Wendy invited me to join. So from time to now, there was something delays and finally got the project off the ground in early twenty twenty twenty six. Last year, in October, we have some encounters with Wendy. We participate in congressional Manglari, Manglari Congress.
Harry Haro:So it was introduced for me to this world of man groups, etcetera. So this year, in January, Wendy Reina Reina, she's another member of a team. We participate in in our project. This project was is about analyze how social media and community ties directly influence individual well-being.
Max Gruenig:Okay. So this is ties very well with this study of community and and the mapping of community. So, Wendy, maybe maybe you can give us a little bit of a of a tour of what does the project do and and how can we imagine this? What is it doing? And and then we can go onto the ground back to Brian.
Wendy Chavez:Yes. So what we did was that we were there in the community, and we mapped trust, we can say. Some of the questions we ask are about who people trust in and if someone is needing some help, it can be in money or it can be in food, for example, who would you help? Or if when you are in need, who helps you? So we ask these kind of questions, and that's when we start under start understanding all this cooperation in the community.
Wendy Chavez:I think our project our projects that we're gonna that Christine have set a part of her career. No? Her her trajectory is based on the study her studies in Ecuador. And from there, I think it evolved to other people and in other different projects. Maybe not directly we cannot directly say that it's about recovery of mangroves, though I've been we've all been, I think, in, you know, restoration of mangrove for people going and and putting mangroves to grow.
Wendy Chavez:But our projects are more related to the social part, no, so the the social ties. And I think it's been wonderful. So I was lucky enough to to be a student of Christine in 2019, and now I came back in 2026 with with Reyna, who is not here right now, and Harry to work. And then I I found Brian again because in 2019, we went there with Christine, Brian was teacher at the school. So I know he was there.
Wendy Chavez:And as Christine mentioned, well, he was teacher before, and now he's the principal. So we connected, and we thought of nice ideas to work about. So some of the ideas we had, one of the ones I'm going to to introduce for Harry to to explain better, is an idea about a or an oral history project. So this oral history project started like, oh, how with questions about the the island in the past. No?
Wendy Chavez:But we didn't know how to make it through, like, you know, to concretely have a a result of that project. What do we want? Who is interested in this? So we discussed this with Christine, like, general ideas and all that. And then when we brought Harry to the team, Harry had great ideas with Brian, and then ideas got into a reality.
Wendy Chavez:So now that Harry is here, I would ask Harry to to please introduce us the project of the oral history. And how is it right now? Because I know it's almost ending, and what is the final result of that project, and what what do you expect about it, Harry?
Harry Haro:Well, we wanted to do more than just conduct research in the island. We wanted to give back to the community of Costa Rica Island. We realized that its history isn't found only in books, but also in its oral tradition. So we ask local students to interview their parents and grandparents and relatives in general about their memories of the Island. So with the incredible support of their teachers like Brian, we compiled these stories to preserve their values and legacy.
Harry Haro:So this is a project designed to bring children and their grandparents together to explore and help preserve the community's values and culture across generations. So more broadly, oral history projects aim to preserve stories for future generations. They have the power to document experiences and historical events. So during our five week stay, I took on the task of compiling and editing these stories. So striving to preserve the original voices of the people involved, students, teacher, grandparents, etcetera.
Harry Haro:Personally, for me, it was an eye opening experience. I learned about their struggles, their fate, their challenges, and their hopes for the future. So we have now put together a beautiful book in Canva that we hope to print and deliver to the school and the families who welcome us so warmly. Specifically, the book contains a summary of the stories written by the children, accompanied by illustrations created using AI. I think it would be a great idea to print a few copies of the book to give to the school and some members of the community.
Harry Haro:That way, it would serve as a written record that could even guide future initiatives of this kind.
Max Gruenig:Excellent. Excellent.
Wendy Chavez:Max, I think maybe we can go to these questions I have here for Brian. I'd like to hear your thoughts on what this community is known for. In your lifetime, Brian, what kinds of changes have you seen in your community, and how would you characterize these changes that you have described? Positive, negative, complicated. And if you can tell me something about your community that can make you feel proud.
Wendy Chavez:What does this community do well?
Brian Flores:The change are positive because my community I think my community has changed a lot mostly in a positive way. Now we have electricity, phone signals, and Internet, which we didn't have before. It's helped to the community grow and connect more with the outside worlds or friends out of the island.
Max Gruenig:And how was that for the people? Like, people, do they stay on the island, or do they tend to go, like, to study or get a job? Do they leave the island, or do they stay?
Brian Flores:The young people want to stay in the island, but also want to to leave the island for study or for works in in other occupations, not only in fishing or seafood.
Wendy Chavez:So and and about that, Brian, also, like, see if you see that now, what kind of community people would want in ten or twenty years, for example? What do you see for the happening in the island in the future?
Brian Flores:I would like to see the community develop in the other areas, not only in in fishing. For example, tourism has a great potential. We have a ability to fish in beach near me as well as diversity of birds, plants, animals. I think developing tourism could help improve it to the local economy, not only the fishing, the traditional activities for the island.
Wendy Chavez:Yes. Of course. Yes. That sounds wonderful. What do you think is the most important lesson a kid in your school should learn?
Brian Flores:Maybe the values and the work for the community. The community in the future will be more unit, for, respect all the people. So not only learn mathematics, languages, science, also learn values.
Max Gruenig:So do you want to maybe say a bit more about the values? Because I think this is very interesting, how are the values for the community on the island. And how are they maybe also evolving? Or are they constant?
Brian Flores:One of the best things in the community, it's, is very safe because the people is very respectful with the things of our people. And all people are are family. I like are like family. No? People are kind, and everyone's know each other.
Brian Flores:There is a lot of rapport between people and also with visitors that is something I I really value. You were in the island, and you know how is the people. Not very kind, a little shy, but, very kind, happy, and always they can help if they can.
Max Gruenig:That's really, really amazing. And, I mean, just hearing from you about this, Wendy, is this different from the situation on the Mainland? Is this something you would say is very, very pronounced difference between living on the island and living in the capital or in another city, in a bigger city in Ecuador?
Wendy Chavez:Yes. I think it's a very different situation. It's not the typical thing. And I would like to go better into the into saying also what I admire of Isla Costa Rica because, of course, I also love my city, Guayaquil, which is beautiful. But in Isla Costa Rica, I think one of the things I love the most is the generosity of the people.
Wendy Chavez:And then when every time I go there, they receive me with such a love, and they are so nice, and they are so open to discuss things and also to talk about, you know, difficult situations that my country is passing through. We can discuss this is happening in Ecuador, and we see some things that in Isla Costa Rica because they have such a strong collective action. No? They they are capable of having their own they organ to organize themselves, no, for their own the the things that they need. So for example, they have a guard in the coast to guard their ocean so they can guard their fishing, and they take care of that part.
Wendy Chavez:They organize themselves to do that and also to take care of the mangrove. And in one of the previous conversations with Brian and Christine, I wrote down this nice phrase that Brian said that people in Isla Costa Rica are heroes of the Mangrove. And because of all the history that Christine was telling us when when she was telling us about her thesis, PhD studies and thesis, What she came to study in Ecuador is about that collective action. And and it's very related to these Mangrove heroes. No?
Wendy Chavez:Because the people in the Ecuadorian coast got together to fight for their rights and for the rights to to belong to their territory, to be there in the territory they they live. No? And so just just to wrap up to say that I I admire very much people in Isla Costa Rica. It's a beautiful place, And I'm very happy that the projects I that we are have done are about these social ties, about these collective action, and that you, Max, are so open to bring us here to tell about this project because the social part of every project is so important for the sustainability of the projects and for sustainability of the coastal places too.
Max Gruenig:Thank you so much, Wendy. I want to follow-up on this. So and maybe also others can come in as well. So when you say collective action and defenders, heroes of the mangroves, maybe you can explain what this means in practice, what is actually happening. Because, of course, for people who are listening from maybe Maine or from Germany, They may know what mangroves are, but what what is actually happening, and why do do they need to defend the mangroves?
Max Gruenig:Why do they need to, take collective action If you have a second to expand a little bit on that, that would be great.
Wendy Chavez:Yes, of course. I would love to say, because it's part of what I have been studying for my PhD And part of the history of Ecuadorian coast is that we have a mangrove forest on the Ecuadorian coast, but that forest has been deforested because we have a very big industry, which is the shrimp industry because we export a lot of shrimp to the rest of the world. But the cost is the deforestation of mangrove and salt marshes and other parts of forest in the coast. So this happened for a long period of time in Ecuador since the seventies until the two thousands. So we had almost 30 of this deforestation, and the communities got together in the Ecuadorian coast to to claim their rights to the mangroves.
Wendy Chavez:And they got together and they had a very good connections with civil society here in Ecuador and other organizations, environmental organizations, as Christine was mentioning. And they also were worked together with Ecuadorian environmentalists who had small NGOs or there were biologists working for the government. And they got together with the community, supported them. And this whole collective action got for Ecuador to pass legislation in 2000 to have a legal mechanism that we have here that is called the sustainable use and cost to the agreements of the mangrove. No?
Wendy Chavez:That is the this is a legal mechanism that we use that the Ecuadorian government uses to give some hectares of mangroves to local communities of fishing associations of traditional or ancestral users for them to take care of those hectares of mangroves. And now we have the Ecuadorian mangrove divided, let's say, into these these legal agreements that take these Costa Rica agreements, and they take care of of of it. So part of the studies that I am writing now and I I have the the help of Christine to write is to analyze how these legal instrument, this way of thinking of giving the custody of the mangrove forest to the communities have been evolving, what has changed in the mind of people, and also how this had contributed for the people and the organizations to be stronger and to be more organized or to be more, I don't know, to teach each other too. No? Because I think one of the next steps that we have to do as Ecuador is to start this exchange of practices.
Wendy Chavez:No? Because all these associations of fishing communities in the North Of Ecuador, the South Of Ecuador, in the Gulf Of Guayaquil and all that, they have good practices the way they manage, the way they exercise the governance of the mangrove. It's really amazing. And I think and I hope in the future we can we can work more and more in in this in putting the communities or making feasible the spaces for the communities to talk more and exchange, you know, practices, ideas, and things like that. But, well, yes, it's a long story.
Wendy Chavez:But, yes, I think they are heroes of the Mangrove, and I'm very happy to be Ecuadorian that that we have the the that sad part of the story of the deforestation. Now can we can tell it, with this other side of the coin, which is the cost to this of the mangroves in the hands of the communities.
Max Gruenig:Wonderful. So, Wendy, if I understand this correctly, the action, the solidarity on this island inspired and drove legal action at the national level. Is that correct?
Wendy Chavez:It's not only by Isla Costa Rica, though. It was one of the first ones in the Ecuadorian coast. So it was a there were communities in the North Of Ecuador organized together, also in the South and also in other parts. So they all got together to start demanding this legislation. So certainly, there were inspired, all of them, by each other.
Wendy Chavez:But I think also your question is good because many times during this road of the PhD, I've been trying to collect a lot of history that it's, you know, in some different parts. And in some moments, would like to have time to put all the history chronologically and perfectly what happened first. No? But in La Costa Rica's other communities were together demanding this and they inspired each other. That's what I would say.
Christine Beitl:I I think all of all of what you said, Wendy, is very true. Isla Costa Rica is one of the first communities to receive one of the first concessions in the country. And it is really interesting. I was not really part of these conversations in the nineteen nineties when they started. And I came in relatively midway through around '20 two thousand nine, twenty ten when some of them were up for their first renewal because they're ten year concessions to protect mangrove that are granted to the community associations to protect the mangroves.
Christine Beitl:So after ten years, they have to reapply, bring together all the paperwork that they need, and submit their documents to the government for renewal. And I was there for part of that as well as some of the new some of the associations that were applying for the first time in El Oro province where where Brian lives and Isla Costa Rica is. And they so I was, you know, going to a lot of those meetings and and kind of observing the process. And then also being at the at the third congresso de Manglares conference in October And hearing the story of Manuel Bravo, who's one of the leading you mentioned you there were there was a coalition of activists as well as, you know, biologists who work for government agencies that all sort of started working together and collaborating with each other because they had this vision. And the way I like the way Emmanuel Bravo tells the story because it was this woman in Bunche, which is in the north of the country, who had this vision that said something to the effect of, well, if shrimp farmers can have property over these mangroves, then why can't we?
Christine Beitl:Or something like that. It's like if they can be given a concession, then why can't we, as shellfish collectors and fishermen, why can't we have our own concession? And that was kind of like where the idea started with these with these groups of of community members in the north part of the country and conversations that were happening from the bottom up and eventually became part of national policy. And to me, that seems like a really amazing thing. And, Wendy, if you want, I would love to trace the history of this.
Wendy Chavez:Beautiful, Christina. I love what you said. Yes. That phrase of that woman was so inspiring, you know, when we heard it. And though I've been standing for a long time at the Mangrove Concessions, hearing this story just recently by the end of last year was so inspiring.
Wendy Chavez:I think it got attached to our hearts ever since.
Max Gruenig:Wonderful. Well, this is indeed very, very inspiring. Also gives you a lot of hope for the future that things can actually happen from the bottom up, from the community level, and inspire change and hope. And I hear also a lot of hope, from what Brian told us about progress and improvements on the island and also positive atmosphere in the community about the future. But then also Harry, the the past, also this link to the past, to the oral history, to being proud of what the community has already achieved and has as a shared history.
Max Gruenig:So this is, I think, creating a beautiful arc throughout time and getting this community tied together that is probably already tied together very nicely. I want to thank all of you for joining this conversation here today, and all the best, of course, for continuing to protect the mangroves and creating sustainable fisheries and nature management on the island. Thank you all so much for the work, and, of course, most thanks going to the community on Isla Costa Rica.