Environmental history of Mexican North Pacific fishing communities

Abstract

Environmental history studies have focused on the negative environmental and equal rights access to natural resources, more recently scholars becoming interested in the study of successful cases of natural resources management. We present a successful co-management fisheries case that is product of a century of environmental history in the Mexican North Pacific region. In this historical process, the passage from rancher settlers to well-organized fishermen in fishing cooperatives took place together with the transition from an intensive exploitation to a sustainable co-management system. External factors played a crucial role in regional fisheries development, first by triggering their being with the arrival of a Japanese company and, afterwards by changing its course during the Great Depression. Two current threats have emerged from unpredictable and detrimental marine environmental factors related to global warming, and from cultural roots loss due, once more, to external factors. We conclude that, at present, the nature of the next historical stage of this enlightened environmental history self-learning case remains unknown.