Excerpt:
Tn the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, most residents of the El Bosque community have been relocated after their homes were destroyed by coastal erosion…
After sea level rise significantly ate away at their town, most residents of Mexico’s El Bosque community have been relocated by the government. However, the residents, who mostly depend on fishing for their livelihoods, are now concerned about job security, as the new site is 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) away from the sea. It’s the latest challenge that makes small-scale fishing in the region difficult.
El Bosque, which is located on a small, thin peninsula where the states of Tabasco and Campeche meet, is one of several communities that have been affected by coastal erosion due to sea level rise in Latin America. From 2019 to June 2024, at least 70 homes in the community were destroyed by the sea. At least 6.6 million people around the world were displaced by climate-related disasters by the end of 2023.
“I am happy because we are no longer worried about whether the north winds will come and where we would have to go,” Yessenia del Socorro Albina Sánchez, a resident of the new relocation site, told Mongabay over WhatsApp. “Calm, but a little affected by the change of location for our work.”
Most residents have dedicated their lives to fishing. “Even though we have been relocated, the people here are not going to stop being fishers,” said Apolonia Cantú Sánchez, another relocated resident. They travel back to El Bosque each day to continue the same job they had before.
Fishers in the Tabasco region have struggled in recent years because of unfavorable weather conditions caused by the north winds, the overexploitation of key species and other factors, such as the creation of exclusion fishing zones and the use of explosives by the offshore petroleum industry.
“Production is low, partly because of the bad weather we are having and because of the Pemex [oil] platforms,” Juan Demesio Loeza de la Cruz, the owner of the warehouse in El Bosque where fishers drop off their catch, told Mongabay over a phone call. The oil company is “exploring about four or five miles from the coast. You can hear bombing from where they are exploring and throw dynamite. That has a huge impact on production…”
Also – from Associated Press 12-12-2023:
Climate change set the sea against a town in Mexico
In El Bosque, a small fishing community in the Gulf of Mexico, a long, one-sided battle against the sea is nearly at an end…