Jessica Reilly: Climate Change and Adaptation 2015-2017

Jessica Reilly: Climate Change and Adaptation 2015-2017

reilly_route_optimIn a first for ICWA, Jessica Reilly and her partner Josh Moman are conducting a seafaring Fellowship, exploring adaption to climate change in coastal communities in México, Central America and the Caribbean. Sailing the Pacic coast through the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean on her 39-foot sailboat Oleada, Jessica will focus on how communities experience climate change impacts.

  • Wings to Nowhere — Birds, Land Use, and Climate

    Wings to Nowhere — Birds, Land Use, and Climate

    • Jessica Reilly
    • July 8, 2016
    Luis whips his head around so quickly that a droplet of water flies out of his nose. He’s mid-sentence, walking through the heavy sand and talking about community-based management for his town, when he stops abruptly. His eyes grow wide behind his square-ish glasses, and the skin on his thin face pushes back into an ...
  • What Can a National Park Do?

    What Can a National Park Do?

    • Jessica Reilly
    • May 23, 2016
    “Mexico has many good laws.” Professor Martín Soto leans back from behind a clump of papers on his desk and sighs. “It’s the enforcement that lacks.” I’m sitting in Martin’s office on the second story of the Marine Science and Limnology Institute in Mazatlán, Mexico. The building hangs on the edge of a cliff above the ...
  • Update from Puerto Chiapas

    Update from Puerto Chiapas

    • Jessica Reilly
    • May 3, 2016
    We just crossed the dreaded Gulf of Tehuantepec: the southernmost gulf in Pacific Mexico, where winds funnel out of the Caribbean, howling down across land to gobble up sailboats in the Pacific with 20-30′ waves. We grabbed our weather window and raced Prism on a double overnight to Puerto Chiapas. A great adventure and test ...
  • Update from Zihuatanejo

    Update from Zihuatanejo

    • Jessica Reilly
    • April 21, 2016
    We are about to depart from Zihuatanejo. We have spent the past two days exploring and reprovisioning here. The town is unlike any we have seen yet, it somehow has the humm of a busy city and the quaintness and relaxed vibe of a coastal town. The bay itself is beautiful; steep, jungle-clad hills (mostly ...
  • Finding Altata: the Slow Change for the Fishers

    Finding Altata: the Slow Change for the Fishers

    • Jessica Reilly
    • March 23, 2016
    “Whatever you do, don’t go to Altata.” These were the last words we heard as we cast off our dock lines in Guaymas. We were about to sail 300 miles with limited charts but plentiful warnings—with the goal of getting to this near-mythical town protected by a bar that might as well have been filled with ...