Reporting for this story was supported by Journalismfund Europe under the Earth Investigations Programme. GALICIA, Spain — The first sleepy rays of morning light are starting to illuminate the beach of Cambados, a small Atlantic-facing town in the Spanish region of Galicia that’s famous for its shellfish and Albariño wine. It’s a rainy morning in March and the mariscadoras — women shellfish pickers — are wading straight into the ocean armed with buckets and rubber boots for another day of work. But the clams and cockles their livelihood depends on are increasingly hard to come by. Extreme weather events made more frequent and intense by climate change, including heat waves and torrential rain, threaten various marine species in the region, and with them, the tradition that has been passed down through generations of women. “Either the shellfish adapt, or they die, and us too,” says Patricia Piñeiro between wind gusts and rain as she searches for clams big enough to harvest. “They’re just too small,” she says, showing the measuring device from the local fishing authorities set to 4 centimeters (1.5 inches), which means she must return most of the clams she finds to the ocean. A mariscadora examines a haul off Cambados in Galicia, northwestern Spain, on 7 Mar., 2024. Many of the clams were below the legal size and had to be returned to the sea. Image by Naomi Mihara for Mongabay. A mariscadora checks to see whether a clam is big enough to keep. Image by Naomi…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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