► Description: |
This book uses five decades of map data,
air photos, and medium to high-resolution
satellite imagery to track the expansions
of aquaculture and the loss of both
estuarine and mangrove land covers in
Ecuador. The results are staggering. In
some regions, Ecuador has lost almost 50%
of its estuarine space and approximately
80% of its mangrove forest. The current
estuarine land cover bears no resemblance
to the historic estuarine land cover. The
analysis is complete from 1968 to 2014.
The analysis covers all the major
estuaries of mainland Ecuador. The
research expands beyond purely land cover
into the land use of the estuaries and the
implications of the land cover
transitions. The author lived in Ecuador's
estuarine environments for almost two
years studying this area. During this time
he conducted mapping workshops with local
residents, conducted 100 interviews with
local actors, conducted six group
discussions with fisherfolk syndicates,
conducted eight presentations, worked on a
shrimp farm. He was employed by the
Ministry of the Environment on a Prometeo
fellowship for one-year researching
estuarine health and worked on mangrove
replanting projects in the estuaries. In
addition to the remote sensing data, the
author provides a contextual framework to
the analysis. It is not just hard numbers
that are presented, but a remote sensing
analysis tied to local actors that tell a
coherent almost 50 -year estuarine story
at the national, provincial, and local
scales
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