page_title: Miskito people
section_title: The industry
hierarchical_section_title: Miskito people / Institutions / Economy / Post-contact mixed economy / The lobster economy and controversy / The industry
caption_attribution_description: Panulirus versicolor
context_page_description: The Miskito are an indigenous ethnic group in Central America, of whom many are mixed race. In the northern end of their territory, the people are primarily of African-Native American ancestry; others are of mixed African-Native American and English descent. Their territory extends from Cape Camarón, Honduras, to Río Grande de Matagalpa, Nicaragua, along the Mosquito Coast, in the Western Caribbean Zone. Their population is estimated at 180,000 people as of 2016.
  The indigenous people speak a native Miskito language, but large groups also speak Miskito Coast Creole, Spanish, which is the language of education and government, and other languages. Miskito Coast Creole, an English-based creole language, came about through frequent contact with the British for trading, as they predominated along this coast. Many are Christians. A 1987 peace agreement afforded them land rights over traditional lands. However, despite significant political struggles throughout their history, today the Miskito face human rights violations over land rights disputes, as recognized by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
context_section_description: Increasing demand in the United States led to a boom in commercial exploitation of spiny lobster along the Moskito Coast beginning in the 1970s. Lobster, like products of past booms, has become a major source of cash income for the Miskito and the great majority of the population either directly or indirectly depends on lobster income. In 2011, the industry employed around 3500 people on 44 boats in Honduras alone. In Nicaragua, it has been estimated that commercial lobster diving employs over 5,000 people and affects the livelihoods of 50,000 men, women and children. Many of these people work as divers, using scuba equipment to dive and catch lobster.
  The vast majority of fishing operations are controlled by ladino boat owners based in the Bay Islands of Honduras and Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. These owners employ local recruiters or sacabuzos in coastal communities to organize crews of dive teams, as well as other boat hands. A dive team consists of a diver and cayuquero; a diver apprentices who follows the diver in a canoe allowing the diver to offload his catch. In addition to 18-20 dive teams, a boat employs additional support staff to cook, clean, and manage the diving equipment.
  At the beginning of a fishing trip, the lobster boats travel the coast picking up recruited dive teams and boat hands. They then search for lobster at known lobster banks between Honduras and Colombia, often illegally and usually over the course of 12–16 days. The divers are paid by the pound for lobster tails alone. In the early days of the boom, lobster tails of 1-2 pound were common whereas by the early 1990s a diver needed 2-3 lobsters to make the same weight. At that time, the average diver brought in, per trip, 150-180 pounds of lobster. By 2011 the estimated average was down to 74 pounds/trip. Following the catch, the boats return the crew members to their communities, and the catch is processed in the Bay Islands or Puerto Cabezas before being shipped to primarily the United States.
caption: Spiny Lobster
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