Mangrove Action Project Joins Calls to Protect Mexico’s Jaguars and Mangrove Habitats

 (MAP) – a global environmental non-profit dedicated to conserving and restoring mangrove forests worldwide – has joined the Mexican NGO Pronatura Noroeste along with other Mexican conservation groups in calling for the urgent protection of local mangroves and the at-risk jaguars that call these forests home.

 

Jaguar populations were once nearly ubiquitous to the Americas, but have been decimated over the last 200 years. Unregulated development and urban expansion along Mexico’s mangrove coasts threatens the last stands for the country’s embattled jaguars, once referred to by the famous 18th century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt as the “Tigers of Latin America”.

 

Hoping to shed light on the big cat’s plight, MAP is working with Victor Hugo Luja, a conservation biologist, professor and researcher at the Autonomous University of Nayarit, who for the past 15 years has documented the lives of jaguars in a 368-hectares protected area. 

Luja’s captivating work drew MAP’s attention when he entered the group’s annual photography contest, the Mangrove Photography Awards, in 2020, winning first prize for his beautiful photo of a mother jaguar and her cub at play in the mangroves of La Papalota reserve. 

 

The biologist and his fellow researchers were surprised to discover jaguars in the mangrove forest. Since then, his ground-breaking research has highlighted the crucial role of small reserves like the one at La Papalota in conserving biodiversity. 

This is a core area for jaguars. Research shows that there are 6-10 jaguars per 100 square kilometers – a number comparable to Mexico’s largest established jaguar reserves found in Calakmul on the Yucatán Peninsula – with individuals returning every nine or ten days for water, resting places, and food, as well as a safe place to give birth and raise their young.

 

Since Luja’s amazing photo was taken, the mother jaguar, nicknamed Janis, was killed by a car while trying to cross a highway in her ever-diminishing territory. But it’s not only urbanization and other developments that pose a threat. 

A larger concern stems from the growing shrimp aquaculture industry, which began in the 1990s and has intensified in recent years. Large swaths of mangrove are regularly cleared to make way for more shrimp farms, threatening the once-secure jaguar habitat. Analysis of recent satellite imagery by David González of the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana – Iztapalapa shows that, between 1993 and 2022, the area covered by shrimp farms increased from 8,367 hectares to approximately 125,000 hectares, an increase of 1400%.

 

“Mexico’s shrimp production in 2023 has solidified its status as the second-largest producer of captured and cultivated shrimp in Latin America and the seventh globally, per preliminary data from the fisheries and aquaculture sector,” Luja says. “The country’s prominence in shrimp production is evident, with figures surpassing 200,000 metric tons in 2021, with approximately 80% originating from aquaculture, according to the National Commission of Aquaculture and Fishing (CONAPESCA).”

 

The problems associated with shrimp farm growth are exacerbated by the fact that over 40% of these farms do not comply with federal regulations. “The most urgent issue,” Luja says, “is that there is no specific state law to regulate the farms.” 

 

Such rampant, unregulated growth has dire ecological consequences for both Mexico’s mangroves and its resident jaguars. Luja worries about unregulated expansion where his team finds new shrimp farms each time they visit the region – and the more mangroves disappear, the more local jaguars families will lose their fight for survival.

  

About Mangrove Action Project: The Mangrove Action Project (MAP) is a US-registered 501 c (3) non-profit, which has advocated for the conservation and restoration of mangrove forests around the world since 1992. MAP personnel, now based on several continents, have conducted mangrove workshops in more than 20 countries, teaching best practices for mangrove conservation, restoration, and education. 

For more information, visit: mangroveactionproject.org 

For queries, please contact: 

UK: Leo Thom leo@mangroveactionproject.org

USA: Alfredo Quarto alfredo@mangroveactionproject.org

Mexico: Prof. Victor Hugo Luja, Autonomous University of Nayarit lujastro@yahoo.com