Members of the Fishermen's Organization Rescuing the Inlet work began a little more than two weeks ago on the cleaning in the area of mangrove of the inlet of this municipality, to remove the debris that was washed away by the rainwater discharges caused by the hurricane Norma.

Hubert Méndez Camachopresident of OPREexplained that around 25 people are participating in this work, supported by NOS Sustainable Northwest, La Paz City Hall, Hotel Marea y Wild Coast.

"We are cleaning the mangrove zone and the area adjacent to where we have oyster farming," he described. "We are cleaning the entire mangrove zone, practically all of El Mogote and the side of Nayarit towards Cicimar.

He explained that the clean-up campaigns are being carried out every day, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Plastics, cork, tires and even household appliances

In the first two weeks of cleanup work, they have removed from the mangroves approximately 8 tons of wastehighlighting the plastic waste which is the largest in volume, said Méndez Camacho.

But the creeks that formed during Norma's rains and discharged into the La Paz inlet They also took cork, tires, tree branches and even parts of refrigerators and washing machines.

"We have also found quite a few things from the boats, because there were many boats that were beached in the wind and others that sank. We have found some of the tarpaulins, some of the toilet bowls from the ships," he said.

The OPRE representative assured that most of the garbage is derived from the drags caused by hurricane Norma, because they have constantly carried out clean-up days in the inlet to keep it clean, removing more than 75 tons of garbage between all the interventions they have made.

It is vital to preserve mangrove health

There are many reasons why fishermen from El Manglito have become aware of how important it is for them to maintain a healthy mangrove ecosystem.

Hubert Méndez emphasized that the mangroves provide protection in hurricanes, as they are a barrier that lessens the effects of winds and storm surges, but also helps in the conservation of the marine species on which they subsist.

"It is very important to keep the entire inlet clean, where we do our fishing activity, because we are recovering the scallop and the 11 species that we have, such as the catarina clam, chocolate clam, Chinese snail, mussel, the three types of scallop," he said.

"And the mangrove area is very important for us because that's where a lot of fish go to spawn, to grow, to grow big and all that."

Méndez Camacho emphasized that these cleanup works are especially relevant because they are in a process for the water quality certification in the inlet, for which they have worked hard and are just a few monitors away from achieving it.

He indicated that they have already made monitoring dives to see the state of the seabed and to locate the areas where there is the most garbage to be cleaned. He estimated that the work to clean up the inlet could take four more weeks.