SEVENSEAS Marine Conservation & Travel Issue 18, November 2016 | Page 104

Our group was there to visit the small fishing village of Cocodrilo on the south coast of the Isle of Youth. Our objectives for the trip were to help with the Cocodrilo’s annual sea turtle festival and begin filming a documentary about the community’s relationship with the ocean.

History of Cocodrilo

Cocodrilo is a small, remote fishing village of around 400 residents founded in 1904 and originally named Jacksonville by sea turtle fishers from the Cayman Islands (some of the older residents still speak English as their first language). Sea turtles had always been Cocodrilo's main means of subsistence—so much so that Cocodrilo was one of only two villages in all of Cuba that were given special permission to continue fishing sea turtles after the country implemented a nationwide moratorium on turtle fishing in 1995. Fishers continued to harvest an average of 18 annual tons of green, hawksbill, and loggerhead sea turtles—the meat was consumed in Cuba and the shells were exported to Japan—and a facility to raise sea turtles was set up near the town. Eventually, in 2008, Cuba completely outlawed these fisheries due to unforgiving international pressure and Cocodrilo was forced to begin its transition away from the fishery: sea turtle fishing would be no more.

Cocodrilo today

Today, Cocodrilo is a community that depends on its local marine environment to make a living. Fishing remains strong within the community, but today fishers target mainly snapper, shark, and grouper. Yet, the industry is very much limited by its lack of resources. Fishing vessels are limited in how far they can travel and how much catch they can hold by how much ice they have—and ice is a rarity in this part of the island. Thus the nearshore waters have been the primary source for fish.

At the same time, nearshore overfishing is an increasing threat to the local fishing industry and marine environment. Diving and snorkeling off the coast of Cocodrilo, we failed to see any large fish or the predators they attract. Now, members of Cocodrilo’s fishing cooperative must travel longer and farther to bring in the same catch.

As relations continue to improve with the U.S., tourism is gradually becoming more of an economic option for Cocodrilo—receiving permission from the Cuban government to travel there is getting easier for visitors.

Community leaders have also started initiatives aimed at educating locals and getting them involved in conservation efforts. One such example is a local coral restoration project that trains youth to SCUBA dive so that they can help maintain the project and teach others about the important role coral reefs serve in the local marine ecosystem and in the community.

Celebrating Cocodrilo’s relationship with the sea: the annual sea turtle festival

In 2011, CubaMar’s director Fernando Bretos helped first start Cocodrilo’s sea turtle festivals to educate local community members and fishers about sea turtles and empower them to get involved in research or conservation work. The festivals were a result of a fisheries learning exchange (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X16303062) series organized by CubaMar and our colleagues at the University of Havana that brought together fishers, managers, and scientists from Cuba, Mexico, and the U.S. to share sea turtle conservation strategies.

As a result of this exchange, participants worked with the local government of Cocodrilo to organize a sea turtle festival based on the NGO Grupo Tortuguero’s model that had proven to be successful in engaging coastal communities in Mexico. The first three festivals received financial support from The Ocean Foundation, Grupo Tortuguero, and Cuba’s Center for Fisheries.

And as we learned during our visit to Cocodrilo this year, the community has successfully organized the annual festivals without any international help or funding since 2014. This year’s sea turtle festival was combined with the community snapper festival and the 112th town anniversary—there were many reasons to celebrate!

During the 2016 festival, children and adults alike participated in a variety of activities aimed at environmental education and conservation messaging: kids learned about their local marine protected area and what not to do at the beach (e.g. don’t litter, don’t step on coral); they recited poetry that they had written—each playing a different marine creature; they played a game of untangling plastic sea turtles from nets (whoever could do it fastest won) to demonstrate the importance of releasing bycaught sea turtles from fishing nets; and they fished for paper fish with magnets (points were deducted if they caught juvenile fish, sea turtles, or marine mammals) to demonstrate the importance of selective fishing.

We were so impressed by the festival. Not only did the kids learn a lot but they were also genuinely excited to be there. It was clear that they look forward to the event every year, and we were grateful to be there.

Isle of Youth, Isle of Change: the future of Cocodrilo

While Cocodrilo is off the beaten track for tourists now, more tourists are likely to eventually arrive with the opening of U.S.-Cuba relations. National and international tourists have started to trickle in to the area with the opening of Cocodrilo’s first casa particular (a privately owned guesthouse). Inevitably, the questions arise about the changes that will come to the community as additional capacity is added.

Will Cocodrilo be ready for the tourism rush when it hits? How can the community implement responsible tourism—where locals benefit economically while the impacts to the coastal and marine environments are managed and reduced?

While these questions remain unanswered, CubaMar and The Ocean Foundation are working with community leaders to develop sustainable tourism options that have positive impacts on the environment, the community, and the economy. It is hoped that development will proceed at a pace that can be managed well, and that large-scale tourism’s attendant problems of wastewater, energy demand, and trash can be avoided. We are working on a documentary through Conservation Media Group’s Blue Initiative Grant (http://www.conservationmediagroup.org/grantee/cubamar) called “Isle of Youth, Isle of Change” that will celebrate Cocodrilo’s relationship with the sea and will situate Cocodrilo and Cuba in conversations about tourism and coastal habitat protection efforts.

The Isle of Youth is a beautiful place, with beautiful beaches and wild protected areas. The people of Cocodrilo celebrate their local marine life at the festival they have embraced as their own. The community now has the opportunity to play the leading role in steering a future that supports the community and the resources on which it depends.

Katie Thompson is Program Coordinator for CubaMar (cubamar.org), a program of The Ocean Foundation. CubaMar has worked with key Cuban institutions for 17 years, the longest of any U.S.-based organization. It conducts collaborative scientific research to advance and inform conservation policy efforts in Cuba and the Wider Caribbean. It also runs people-to-people SCUBA diving trips to Guanahacabibes National Park on the western point of Cuba.

Luke Elder is currently a Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Luke previously worked as a Program Associate with The Ocean Foundation on sustainable travel and tourism, corporate sustainability, ocean acidification, and blue carbon. It was in this role that Luke traveled with CubaMar to Cuba to conduct the work detailed in this article. 

About CubaMar

CubaMar (cubamar.org), a program of The Ocean Foundation, has worked with key Cuban institutions for 17 years, the longest of any U.S.-based organization. We conduct collaborative scientific research to advance and inform conservation policy efforts in Cuba and the Wider Caribbean. We also run people-to-people SCUBA diving trips to Guanahacabibes National Park on the western point of Cuba. Please contact us at http://www.cubamar.org/contact-us.html to learn more.

About The Ocean Foundation

The Ocean Foundation (www.oceanfdn.org) is a unique community foundation with a mission to support, strengthen, and promote those organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world. The Ocean Foundation (TOF) works with donors who care about our coasts and oceans to provide financial resources to marine conservation initiatives through various funds and consulting services. We have grantees, partners and projects on all the world’s continents. Please contact us at https://www.oceanfdn.org/contact to learn more.

For more information on the history of Cocodrilo, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/world/2015/10/31/cubas-island-of-broken-dreams/

Photo Captions:

Cocodrilo1: A horse grazes outside of Villa Arrecife, the first casa particular in Cocodrilo.

Cocodrilo2: Diving in Cocodrilo is limited to nearshore reefs: with no boats, you can only dive as far as you are willing to swim

Cocodrilo3: Cocodrilo’s main thoroughfare.

Cocodrilo4: The remnants of an abandoned sea turtle breeding ground

Cocodrilo5: Stunning coral reefs are situated a mere hundred feet offshore

Cocodrilo6: Banner promoting the Fiesta del Amor Natural, or Celebration of Love for the Environment.

Cocodrilo7: Children listen intently to a presentation about their local protected areas

Cocodrilo8: The children of Cocodrilo were excited to meet us

Cocodrilo9: A storm rolling in from the ocean. Temporary afternoon rain showers are frequent in Cocodrilo and much of Cuba during the summer

104 - SEVENSEAS