Ecuador's crabbers and the muddy work of saving mangroves

José Ordinola and Mauricio Cruz wade waist-deep into a small channel that flows from the Gulf of Guayaquil into the Arenillas Ecological Reserve mangrove swamp, a protected area on the southern Ecuadorian coast just a few miles north of the border with Peru. 

The tide has receded enough to allow them to cross into the forest and harvest the day’s catch. 

The crabbers, or cangrejeros, climb through the dense tangle of roots to locate small openings in the ground where red mangrove crabs rest in deep, muddy burrows. 

On any given day, there could be 30 crabbers working the mangrove roots in this area. Besides simply relying on the mangrove’s abundant shellfish, they also manage and care for the trees. 

“The mangrove for me is life,” says Cruz. “The mangrove protects the species from which we survive, not just us — but our families. That’s why we sustain it.”