Twelve women from El Manglito, a trailer, and the 14 hectares of mangrove they tend

In La Paz, the women of Las Guardianas del Conchalito have received a trailer to carry their tools and materials into the El Conchalito mangrove. The 12 members all come from the fishing neighbourhood of El Manglito. They survey, clean and replant the estuary that feeds their bay.

The collective has 12 members, all women, and all from El Manglito, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in La Paz. Their families lived from the sea. When the local fishery collapsed in the middle of the last decade, the neighbours began to organise. Sources give different founding dates. The group formally took the name Las Guardianas del Conchalito in 2018.

They grew up alongside OPRE, a fishers' organisation from the same streets that brings together 15 cooperatives and 20 independent fishers. The two groups depend on each other. The estuary is a breeding ground for species fished in the bay, among them the Catarina scallop and the callo de hacha pen shell. The fishers need the mangrove to be healthy, and the women look after it.

Their days are spent on surveillance, biological monitoring, cleanups and guiding visitors. They also run a nursery, where seedlings grow for six to twelve months before the women plant them out. Alongside the restoration work, the members run an oyster-farming business that only women take part in. Their spokesperson, Claudia Reyes, has said the group wants educational ecotourism at the site, not conventional tourism.

Until now, the tools for this work had to be carried in by hand. In mid-September the collective received a trailer for its cleanup, restoration and care days, which neighbours and other community groups also join. The Ayuntamiento de La Paz and the marine protection fund FONMAR each paid half of the cost.

Amor Fenech Montaño, acting municipal president of La Paz, took part in the handover. She did not credit the town hall. She credited the people who organised themselves.

“La organización vecinal, de comunidad, de aliados y aliadas, es lo que nos permite seguir avanzando.” Organisation among neighbours, communities and allies is what lets us keep moving forward.

The handover came eight years, almost to the day, after the women opened their nursery. The first seedlings from that time are now mangrove trees. The trailer will not change the work itself. The women will still crouch beside their survey squares and count the mangroves by hand.