It was early October, another beautiful morning at our tranquil Ecuadorian beach house. But our view of the consistently blue Pacific had changed. Large barcos lined the horizon while small fishing boats dashed out, docked and then returned, overloaded with mounds of shiny sardines. We had been warned that our “California beach of the 1950’s” would become a commercial fish cleaning zone but, it happened fast and was complete and we were shocked.
During our three month slow travel in Ecuador, we rented a beach house in Crucita for five weeks. It wasn’t long before we discovered ourselves center stage in an intense local dispute that pits the sardine industry against local advocates fighting against the practice of using chop and clean houses on the beach. Currently the beach shacks serve as pre-packaging plants for the giant canneries in Manta across the bay.
Crucita has a beautiful shallow bay. During the 10 months of sardine fishing, the large fishing boats (barcos) that follow the Humboldt current just off the coast of Ecuador for the rich river of sardines use the bay for safety and to station themselves. We counted up to 14 one day.
The sardines are fished at night; it’s best when moonlight exposes the shallow-swimming, silvery schools to the fishing boats and eventually the nets. Given the bonanza of nutritionally rich food like sardines, the Humboldt also teems with larger fish. So for example, Manta, Ecuador, the lights of which can be seen at night across the bay, is the tuna capital of the world.
It gets a little complicated and there are several subplots, but the fight we found revolves around a historical and supposedly illegal practice of cleaning and chopping the sardines on the beach. At daylight the locally owned small boats go out to the large barcos, where the sardines are collected from the fishing barcos and brought to shore for cleaning.
Crucita is one of the last fishing village that allows the chop shacks on the beach. The open air, thatched roofed, wooden pole shacks are roughly 40 feet long and 30 feet wide. Inside there are several tables, each about five feet wide with wood planks running the 30-foot width. The fish are cleaned and chopped on the planks. So each shack can have dozens of people working on both sides of the tables. One of those chop shacks was in front of our house.
Since this is one of the last communities to allow the chop shacks, sardines are also trucked (small to mid-sized trucks) from nearby fishing villages to Crucita and then brought on the beach to these cleaning sheds (30-40 of them).
Then the cleaned sardines are trucked to the major canneries in Manta about 40 miles away. Huge facilities there include U.S. companies like Bumblebee and Chicken of the Sea, although those two process tuna, while other canneries specialize in the sardines.
The fight to get this practice stopped in Crucita has escalated. The local government council allows it to continue and of course the canneries benefit because they receive cheaply cleaned sardines. You can imagine the resistance in place to any change. The chop and clean shacks are a cash business. Perhaps that helps explain why they remain.
Here is one of the nuances: the locals on the beach aren’t paid the wages they would if they were in a processing plant, not to mention the “social security” they are legally entitled to, and they work in rough conditions. At high tide the chop and clean crews stand in water. Plus children are working. Add to that the unsanitary conditions and lack of refrigeration, and the nutritionally rich sardines we buy don’t sound that appetizing.
The locals working against the chop shops believe the practice is illegal under Ecuadorian law and that the child labor has to end. Their efforts to end the beach practice has created pressure that affects many interests.
The advocates believe most of the workers are on their side since they would benefit from moving the cleaning and chopping off the beach to legitimate sites where they would be paid more and have better working conditions. But there is also a strict hierarchy among the sardine crews which tightly regulates the status quo.
Shortly after the season resumed in October, we saw the beach transformed into a bloody mess of fish guts and blood flowing to the ocean and truck oil stains on the beach. It seems as though there are legal, ethical and environmental issues at stake. The chop and clean shacks have been documented extensively, but they remain in active operation.
It is not known if President Correa is aware of the beach pre-processing shacks or the issues involved. The advocates were working hard to get their message out to local and regional officials and to the newspapers under the assumption that shining the light on this practice on a beautiful Ecuadorian beach would force public outrage and change.
Ecuador is changing fast. President Correa is very popular (60-70% approval rate) and seemingly doing an amazing job while fighting entrenched interests. He is up against the local councils, many of which are powerful, so new laws can get choked before they breathe. The lack of action here may be a case of choosing one’s battles.
Ecuador’s development, particularly in the last five years, is amazing to see; roads are being built everywhere, mandatory schooling has been implemented along with child labor laws, a minimum wage, and “social security.” Before Correa, Ecuador changed governments so often there was no stability. Now the country is swept up in massive social, political and economic changes. By the way, Correa is U.S.-educated with a PhD in economics.
I know what you are thinking, and there is an organization that is responsible for fishing regulations, it is called CEIPA. And seemingly they are aware of the chops shacks on the beach or at least should be after this article. Yet the shacks remain on the beach.
One more quick beach practice that caused a stir. During my runs on the beach I passed this truck a few times watching three or four guys vigorously loading it with sand and then I would watch it drive down the beach towards town. I was told they were using or selling the sand for mixing concrete for the local construction projects.
Suffice it to say we enjoyed an interesting slow travel experience in Crucita. This story unfolded in bits and pieces over our five week stay as we got to know the advocates. While intriguing, the atmosphere was too inflamed to feel comfortable and the beach was a mess. Our time in Crucita was over, we moved on to Cuenca.