Systemic erosion: How climate-vulnerable surf economies in El Salvador reveal global inequities in coastal adaptation funding

Indigenous coastal stewardship in El Salvador, such as the Cacaopera people’s mangrove restoration, offers low-cost, high-resilience alternatives to insurance-based adaptation. These practices are rooted in intergenerational knowledge of wave patterns, storm surges, and ecosystem health, yet are excluded from policy discussions. The surf tourism industry’s focus on elite breaks like Oriente Salvaje ignores the broader coastal ecosystems that sustain both waves and local livelihoods.

The surf tourism boom in El Salvador mirrors colonial-era land grabs, where coastal areas were privatized for foreign investment, displacing fishing communities. The 1990s discovery of Oriente Salvaje occurred amid post-civil war land reforms that favored agribusiness and tourism over smallholder rights. Globally, surf tourism has followed a pattern of ‘blue economy’ extraction, where local ecological knowledge is replaced by corporate-controlled ‘eco’ branding.

In Bali, surf tourism has led to water scarcity and coral reef degradation, prompting local movements to reclaim beaches and restore mangroves. Hawaiian activists link surf tourism to the dispossession of Native Hawaiians from ancestral lands, framing wave protection as a decolonial struggle. In Senegal, traditional *pirogue* fishermen use wave patterns to navigate storms, a practice dismissed by modern insurance models as ‘anecdotal.’

Climate models project that El Salvador’s surf breaks will face increased erosion and storm damage due to rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes, but insurance models often underestimate these risks by focusing on short-term financial viability. Scientific studies show that mangrove restoration can reduce wave energy by up to 66%, yet this is rarely integrated into surf tourism adaptation plans. The lack of peer-reviewed data on surf ecosystem services in El Salvador highlights a gap in evidence-based policy.

Surf culture in El Salvador is often framed as purely recreational, but for local fishermen and Indigenous communities, waves carry spiritual significance tied to ancestral seafaring traditions. Artists like the *Colectivo de Arte y Ecología* in El Salvador use murals to protest the commodification of waves, linking surf tourism to the erosion of cultural identity. Globally, surf films like *The Endless Summer* have mythologized waves as conquests, obscuring their role in sustaining life.

Insurance-based adaptation risks creating a two-tiered system where wealthy surf tourists are protected while local communities bear the brunt of climate impacts. Scenario modeling suggests that without mangrove restoration and community-led zoning, El Salvador’s surf breaks could collapse within 20 years, displacing tens of thousands of livelihoods. Alternative futures include ‘surf commons’ models, where coastal access is communal and managed by local councils, but these require radical shifts in property rights.

Fishing communities in El Salvador’s eastern coast, such as those in La Unión, have been systematically excluded from surf tourism planning, despite bearing the brunt of environmental degradation. Women-led cooperatives, like *Mujeres del Mar*, have proposed mangrove-based livelihoods but lack funding compared to surf tourism ventures. Afro-Salvadoran Garífuna communities, who have stewarded these coasts for centuries, are rarely consulted in climate adaptation strategies.