Education

After prison closure was announced in 2019, the then President of Mexico announced that the islands would be opened to limited tourism based around an Environmental and Cultural Education Centre, in Spanish called “Centro de Educación Ambiental y Cultural Muros de Agua-José Revueltas”. The focus of this centres work was to be the conservation, protection and dissemination of the island’s natural, social and cultural heritage.

Working with government agencies as a flagship project of the centre, we are creating a cetacean research programme for students, park rangers and tourism operators from nearby coastal communities. Our “training-while-doing” approach involves monthly trips to the islands for workshops and classes and vessel surveys. We will educate participants in research techniques, providing them with new skills and knowledge, while facilitating ongoing data collection regionally. This will provide critical new information on cetacean presence for strategic spatial management of tourism, to mitigate negative impacts to local cetacean populations.