Gabriel Hoeffer, a 24-year old member of the isolated Seri (Cocmaác) tribe of northwest Sonora, Mexico, recently won his countryís National Prize for Indigenous Youth. His efforts to rally the Seri community to protect sea turtles have gained the cooperation of local fishermen and brought international attention to his work.
In 2003, Hoeffer and his friend and colleague, Héctor Perales, initiated a project to monitor sea turtles in local waters, the first conservation project entirely managed and directed by the Seri community.
The Seris have lived along the Sea of Cortez for more than 2,000 years. Seri cultural traditions are tightly woven with the plants and animals of their coastal desert home. Turtles have long been an important food source, and they play a key role in Seri legends, songs and cultural identity. As turtle numbers declined precipitously in recent years, and new laws banned their capture, the Seri have struggled to adjust.
Hoeffer and Perales have had a long-standing interest in turtle protection, and they have brought a passion to their work that has helped other community members understand that continued fishing for turtles could lead to their extinction and a terrible cultural loss.
Their first opportunity to blend cultural traditions with conservation science was a 1999 training program sponsored by Comunidad y Biodiversidad, A.C. (COBI) and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Dr. Gary P. Nabhan led a training session for Seri youth ìpara-ecologistsî focused on the cultural importance and ecology of marine species in the area. Co-taught by Western biologists, such as Nabhan, and Seri elders, the course introduced conservation techniques as part of a government certificate program to encourage youth to participate in ecosystem protection efforts.
From 2000 to 2002, the young men took part in a turtle-monitoring project led by U.S. turtle ecologist Dr. Jeffrey Seminoff, furthering their technical knowledge and allowing them hands-on experience. With this under their belts, they identified a need to monitor turtles in the Infiernillo channel area, and with the help of COBI and a $5,000 grant from Global Greengrants Fund they designed and initiated the project – no small feat for two young men from El Desemboque, a village with only one public telephone.
Between April and December 2003, Hoeffer and Perales made 13 trips to catch and tag sea turtles. In total, they were able to capture, study and tag 13 turtles, gathering important information about the health, biology, and travel patterns of these endangered creatures. In one case, they picked up a male that was already tagged; it turned out to be the first confirmed case of a sea turtle tagged in Baja California that had traveled to this area of Sonora. They also tagged a Hawksbill turtle, a critically endangered species.
This monitoring work is essential for better understanding and protection of sea turtles, which face continued threats from poachers and fishermen. Hoeffer and Perales were able to involve local fishermenówho know and trust them – in the monitoring efforts, convincing them to turn over turtles accidentally captured in their fishing nets. Such cooperation would have been much less likely had the project been run by outsiders.
Hoeffer and Perales were able to share their findings at a number of public conferences and forums. In December, 2003 Perales attended the Third International Wildlife Management Congress in New Zealand as part of the symposium “Guardians from Around the World: Indigenous Perspectives in Resource Management.” The youngest participant in the Congress, Perales presented their findings and attended a retreat with 50 indigenous resource managers from around the world. For Perales, who had never before left the state of Sonora, this was a unique and challenging experience that allowed him to network with other indigenous leaders and taught him how to create and present a PowerPoint presentation to an international audience – in English no less!
To continue the sea turtle monitoring project, Hoeffer submitted a proposal to the Mexican National Institute of Youth, winning the National Prize for Indigenous Youth with a purse of $5,000 in September 2004. To a reporter from El Imparcial he said, “I’m really excited and happy, because I never thought that they’d recognize me for something that for me is not work, but something I do because I like to.”
These two young men and their new organization, Turtle Group of Seri Para-ecologists, are bringing ecological expertise and enthusiasm to their town, and they offer hope that local fishermen can be an increasingly powerful force for turtle protection.