We had a ton of DR days this past week. We've been out to Isla Magdalena twice so far, and got stuck at the center for a couple of times as well. I hate getting stuck here, because it means I have waaay too much time on my hands. I end up using a small portion to get things done, but most of it I end up sitting around thinking "ugggh I have so much to do." I'm much more productive if I only have like 3 hours to work.

This morning Kay & I got up early to interview an agricultural extension agent for our pesticide project. He brought up some really good points about pesticides boosting productivity, and how we still can't feed everyone. He also pointed out that pesticides are expensive, so most farmers will try other methods first, and if they do have to use them will limit their use and try to do it in a way that keeps as much of the chemicals on their crops as possible. He's exactly the kind of person we wanted to talk to, besides the EPA. I'm just going to call them soon, I haven't heard back from half the sources we emailed.

Got the morning off (during which I did very little), then went to the island at one. We had three interviews with coop members, including some good ones. One guy told us a lot of people were worried about the NGO that's working with them, COBI (Comunidad y Biodiversidad) because he doesn't know what they want from the coop. A lot of these people aren't familiar with NGOs, so he thought that COBI would want a percentage of profits or something, he didn't realize it's totally free. Even (actually, especially) the government here wants a cut of everything.

Our last interview of the day was a knockout. The guy worked for CONAPESCA, the fisheries management/enforcement agency, and was also a member of the coop. He had some very different answers about how much people obey the rules and what needs to be done to improve enforcement. Everyone has been saying that they don't want outsiders watching the area, because they don't trust them. But this guy said that he does want an outsider, because half the time the coop members go out and the guatero (theif/bandit) is their cousin, or their brother-in-law or something, so they pretend they don't see them. This guy thinks that if it's a third party they won't be swayed by connections.

In general, this guy was very knowledgable and very dedicated to conservation. As just a normal fishermen, no extra education, he noticed that the fish stocks were going down and decided that they had to be protected. So he started patrolling the area. At one point, with CONAPESCA he completely cleared out the bay of guateros in fifteen days. Within those fifteen days people burned out his car while he was out patrolling. On the 18th day they beat the shit out of him. In that month he was driving down the highway and got chased off the road. And the worst part is that it's so hard to get anything to stick to anyone, he sends people to court and they just pay off the court and are back out in a few days. He knows one guatero that he's caught three times named his boat after him as a joke. But he keeps at it, because he says that after years of doing this, even with little judicial backup, he's seen results. Talk about amazing people. He's facing all kinds of challenges, literally risking his life to protect the bay, and didn't even go to high school.