From an early age, women from a fishing community in eastern Nicaragua learned to collect “conchas negras” (black shells) in the mangroves, which they protect with future generations in mind.
Legs sunk to the knees in the “ñanga” (swampy area), making her way through a maze of roots, Elena Martinez, 40, says she learned to “conch” at the age of 10 .
It is in Estero Aserradores, in the municipality of El Viejo, more than 135 kilometers from Managua, that this group of eight women faces the hardship of this work which contributes to the subsistence of the family.
Because the fishing practiced by men “is not enough”, explains to AFP Elena Martinez.
Three days a week, they leave their homes at dawn to row the mangroves about two kilometers away and pick up the “conchas negras” until noon.
These molluscs of the species “Anadara tuberculosa”, found only in the Americas and often called “mangrove cockles”, are served in certain restaurants and popular belief abounds about their supposed aphrodisiac properties.
Juana Izquierdo, 50, her face hardened by the sun, tells AFP how she has to push her arms deep into the “ñanga” to find cockles, unlike the days when, as a child, she learned to almost pick them up on the surface of the marshy ground.
“I was 8 years old, and they weren’t deep,” she recalls.
Now, the two women put the smaller shells back in the mud to “protect and save our mangroves” and only keep the larger ones, which sell for 30 cordobas (about 80 cents) a dozen.
This is enough to prepare a hearty dish of raw cockle meat marinated in lime and accompanied by diced tomatoes and onions with herbs.
Elena Martinez explains that the women collectors of “conchas negras”, a hundred in El Viejo, do not just search deep in the mud to extract the shells, but take care of the mangrove so that the biological cycle is maintained so as not to deplete the resource.
In addition to molluscs, mangrove forests are home to great biodiversity with many species of insects, birds, fish and crustaceans.
They also offer natural protection against strong winds and sea turbulence.
“Growing up, I was able to understand how important it was to collect shellfish well, because before we didn’t value it: we took as many of them as possible, without thinking that maybe, one day , there would be no more and that we could no longer provide for the needs of our children”, concedes the mother of three boys in their twenties who devote themselves to fishing.
“Today more than before we protect the mangroves, we don’t deforest, we plant, we reforest … always for our good, that of our children and the rest of the population”, she specifies.
02/23/2023 11:47:16 – Sawyers (Nicaragua) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP