\n<\/p>\n
J<\/span>ust before dawn, in a scene that has repeated itself over thousands of years on the north coast of Peru, fishers drag boats made of bound reeds to the water\u2019s edge and, kneeling on them, use paddles shaped from split bamboo to row out into the Pacific Ocean to catch their breakfast. A few hours later, these surfer fishers return with netfuls of their catch, riding waves on the final stretch back to the shore. From the main beach in Huanchaco \u2013 a seaside town near the city of Trujillo \u2013 the fish are taken to sell at the market or to beachfront restaurants preparing meals for tourists.<\/p>\n The four-metre-long reed vessels \u2013 known as caballitos de <\/em>totora <\/em>in Spanish, or \u201clittle reed horses\u201d \u2013 are placed upright on their ends by the promenade on El Mogote beach so that the seawater drains away and they are ready to be used the next morning.<\/p>\n <\/span>Fishers paddle out at dawn from El Mogote beach in Huanchaco, Peru, to fish on reed rafts known as caballitos de totora<\/em>.<\/span> Photograph: Dan Collyns<\/p>\n Archaeologists estimate that fishers in Peru have been using the reed boats for approximately 3,500 years. Elaborate ceramics dating back to the sophisticated Moche culture (AD100-800) and the later Chim\u00fa civilisation (900-1470), depict figures astride the craft, which was called a t\u016bp<\/em> <\/em>in the now-extinct Mochica language. <\/em>They are believed to be <\/em>among the first crafts to be used for riding waves, possibly predating Polynesian proto-surfing in Hawaii.<\/p>\n <\/span>Ceramic vessel representing a caballito de totora<\/em> being ridden by a fisherman. <\/span> Photograph: Luis Garc\u00eda\/Museum of the Americas<\/p>\n But today, many fishers believe they may be the last generation to fish using the signature boats with their upturned bow that cuts through the waves. Dwindling fish stocks, plastic contamination and competition from motorised fishing boats, big and small, that plough through their nets mean they struggle to achieve the catches that their fathers and grandfathers did.<\/p>\n \u201cMy father used to tell me that with one or two nets, they used to bring in a lot of fish. Now we use six or seven nets and the catch is low,\u201d says Junior Huamanchumo, 37, who comes from generations of fishers in Huanchaco, and still practises the ancestral art that was declared part of Peru\u2019s cultural heritage in 2003.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s because of the big boats that scoop up everything and take all the fish. And they don\u2019t respect the size limits [for the juvenile fish],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Huamanchumo learned to fish in this way when he was 14 years old. While he loves his family\u2019s tradition, he doesn\u2019t see a future in it for his 13-year-old son, the eldest of his three children.<\/p>\n On a November morning, he stands his saturated caballito \u2013 <\/em>which when wet weighs double its usual 40kg \u2013 swings a netful of fish over his back and walks up a narrow street to his wife, Gabriela\u2019s, fish stall outside the covered market. There, under a parasol, she caters to customers buying corvina<\/em> (sea bass), caballa<\/em> <\/em>(mackerel), <\/em>bonito<\/em> <\/em>(part of the same family as mackerel and tuna) and <\/em>hueveras<\/em> (fish eggs).<\/p>\n <\/span>Junior Humanchumo, 37, helps to supply fresh fish for his wife Gabriela\u2019s stall. But as catches get smaller, they struggle to support their three children from fishing alone.<\/span> Photograph: Dan Collyns<\/span>Gabriela Lecherre fillets a bonito (small tuna fish) at her stall. She has to supplement her husband\u2019s catch with fish brought from a wholesale market in the nearby city of Trujillo.<\/span> Photograph: Dan Collyns<\/p>\n But Huamanchumo\u2019s catch shows ever-diminishing returns: 5kg of the 6kg is lisa<\/em> (grey mullet), a popular but common fish, and there is ever less of the more commercial fish that were once abundant in his family\u2019s fishing grounds. Gabriela has to supplement their stall with fish brought in from a larger wholesale market in Trujillo.<\/p>\n double quotation markMy father told me that with one or two nets, they used to bring in a lot of fish. Now we use six or seven nets and the catch is lowJunior Huamanchumo<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it is very emotional because it\u2019s what my father taught me, and you feel proud of that. I like it, but sometimes, out of necessity, because the children have to eat, I do other work, like construction,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The fishers also face a shortage of the raw material they need for their boats \u2013 the totora reeds. About once a month, they remake their vessels from the reeds, reusing string and polystyrene as a buoyant filler.<\/p>\n But early in 2025, several spills from a sewage treatment plant damaged more than half of the ponds north of the town where the reeds grow. The 40 fishers who still use caballitos <\/em>clubbed together and, with technical assistance from the NGO Conservation International, built 13 new ponds for those who lost theirs.<\/p>\n <\/span>Fisher Pablo D\u00edaz, 65, harvests totora reeds from his pond. Sewage overflow damaged many reed ponds in 2025; D\u00edaz\u2019s was one of the few that was unharmed.<\/span> Photograph: Dan Collyns<\/p>\n Pablo D\u00edaz, 65, was among the lucky ones; his reed pond was unaffected by the spill. He harvests the reeds, cutting them when they are green and leaving them out to dry for a fortnight before they are tightly bound into the four bunches needed to build one caballito.<\/em> The boats last about a month before they become too waterlogged and have to be replaced.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo compa\u00f1eros<\/em> lost their reed beds completely. [The beds] got buried in a landslide and are now contaminated,\u201d D\u00edaz says, explaining that he let them harvest reeds from his pond until they were able to recover.<\/p>\n After five decades of fishing in this way, D\u00edaz supplements his income by showing curious tourists how he rides a caballito, <\/em>or taking them for a ride on the back of one. <\/em>Huanchaco\u2019s old-school charm attracts a mix of Peruvians and foreign backpackers, and occasionally a coachload of passengers from a cruise ship will pass through the town \u2013 an opportunity neither D\u00edaz nor his wife, Flor Urcia, who sells souvenirs on the promenade, can afford to miss.<\/p>\n Traditional ancestral fishing is protected in Peru by a 2018 law that declares it of \u201cnational interest\u201d. But little has been done to enforce the protection of the five-nautical-mile coastal stretch of ocean that is reserved exclusively for the caballito fishers, amid concerns that Peru\u2019s rich marine ecosystem is being overexploited.<\/p>\n <\/span>Fishers and surfers on Huanchaco beach. Surfing is throwing a lifeline to the fishing community.<\/span> Photograph: VW Pics\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Nowadays, surfing is throwing a lifeline to this struggling community. Attracted by the Pacific swell and world-class breaks, surfers flock to Huanchaco, and many become enamoured of the caballitos,<\/em> one of the ancient precursors of the sport. Many of the younger generation in fishing families become talented surfers and some have opened their own surf schools. The Australian embassy in Peru has taken caballito fishers to the Gold Coast and has backed Huanchaco\u2019s surf tourism as an economic alternative.<\/p>\n Daniela Amico, Conservation International\u2019s communications director in Peru, is a keen surfer. \u201cI believe that by connecting surfing and the ancestral culture of these fishermen, we can find new opportunities for them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n <\/span>Reed boats standing on their ends drying out after use.<\/span> Photograph: Travelscape Images\/Alamy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just before dawn, in a scene that has repeated itself over thousands of years on the north coast of Peru, fishers drag boats made of bound reeds to the water\u2019s edge and, kneeling on them, use paddles shaped from split bamboo to row out into the Pacific Ocean to catch their breakfast. A few hours<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[723,956,8710,7930,23450,23451,22462,1119,10077,1301,5123],"class_list":{"0":"post-45581","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ancient","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-fishing","11":"tag-peru","12":"tag-perus","13":"tag-reedboat","14":"tag-riding","15":"tag-save","16":"tag-surf","17":"tag-tourism","18":"tag-wave"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}