born out of a shared curiosity that grew into mutual appreciation—a curious American grad student eager to understand a place his country isolated and embargoed away from his worldview, and an equally curious Cuban fisherman wondering what brought this stranger to his doorstep. Our shared enchantment with the sea has kept us close ever since. I met Yoan in 2017, on a trip to Cuba to conduct interviews and gather local perspectives on the implementation of marine protected areas (mpa). I knew what the scientific literature said about creating effective mpa’s—they needed to be big enough, old enough, isolated enough, and well enforced enough to really achieve any conservation outcome like recovering fish populations or protecting habitat. But I wanted to know what that looked like in the real world, where science-backed policy isn’t implemented in a vacuum, where folks have to provide for themselves because the government or the market couldn’t.

Among many poignant interviews, Yoan’s candid remarks helped me understand the broader socio-economic context that dictates the relationship between humans and nature in Cuba and around the world. His friendship, reflections and willingness to share continues to guide my perspective and thought-process to this day. Cubans live with extremely limited access to virtually all staples that much of the world might take for granted; rice, sugar, gasoline, and even the electrical grid exists in scarcity, and Cuban culture is by default as resilient and adaptable as they come. Yoan and many fishers like him do not have the luxury to even consider purchasing gasoline, and reach the fishing grounds by oar or sail. This fact alone helps to explain the “positive result” of less exploited coastal fisheries in Cuba, exhibiting more biomass than the vast majority of developed countries in the Caribbean. Conservation here is a function of socio-economic constraints more than it could be called a successful science-based management strategy.

Yoan is effortlessly a naturalist. He knows what shrub is poisonous enough to kill a cow, which flowering body to chew on for heartburn after a long day fishing swallowing nothing but water and a few mouthfuls of cane sugar. One day he gave me a book with half its cover eaten off, on the taxonomy of Cuban fish. He no longer needed it—it was all in his head anyways. Yoan was ambivalent towards the idea of a protected area, or concern for endangered species that he may or may not encounter while fishing. Yoan and artisanal fishers like him demonstrate to me the complexity of environmental issues, and the importance of context when approaching a true understanding of anything. In many cases, those holding the fish hook on the geographic and socioeconomic margins of modern society are hardly the ones to hold responsible for environmental degradation. On the contrary they are disproportionately affected by environmental impacts linked to human activities, be that emissions-related climate change, unsustainable market demand or profit-driven development. Far from an adversary to conservation goals, people like Yoan are incredible assets for the place-based experiential knowledge they could aport to answer important questions about changing ecosystems and environmental pressures.

Yoan’s lived experience is full of qualitative observations; the seasonality of fisheries, the habitual breeding grounds of lobster or grouper, the changes over time in coastal mangrove forests impacted by extreme weather events. His story is a reminder that science and empirical knowledge come from a variety of backgrounds, not all of them academic. Gathering diverse perspectives helps us grasp how our world is changing, and how we can adapt.

Yoan and I have continued to enjoy a friendship based around marveling nature, and are in frequent conversation about ongoing changes and current events in our respective corners of the world. He provides me with seasonal environmental updates along with reports from what he is seeing, finding, fishing along the coast of Cuba. I try to support his lifestyle and all the knowledge he shares with me by promoting his story and providing resources to help with the exceedingly difficult cost of living and working in Cuba. If you’re interested in Yoan’s story, knowing what he’s doing today, or how you can lend a helping hand to the folks of Cuba who continue to persist in an environment of artificially created scarcity through no fault of their own doing, feel free to get in touch!