Socioecological Lessons Across the Pacific Border
Toward the end of last year, the Peruvian shores of Lobitos — a town located 60 kilometers south of Máncora — became a sensory classroom with the aim of expanding the role of educators in building socioecological awareness, through a workshop that laid the groundwork for drafting a manifesto on the subject. Researcher Paul Merchant, occupational therapist Karina Villarroel, and researcher and ecotourism administrator Javiera Espinoza — all three linked to educational initiatives and collaborators of our foundation — took part in this gathering, which, they recounted, led them to deepen their understanding of the ocean as a living space for learning and inhabiting through the body and through care, with a sense of responsibility.
The workshop consisted of two days of shared learning about the ocean, as well as inspiring educational strategies that will allow the participants to develop, in the future, a pedagogical resource on art, ecology, and wellbeing open to the general public. It all began with a welcome circle and a collective immersion alongside educators and representatives from Coast 2 Coast (1) and Waves Lobitos (2). The participants — mostly teachers, one of them a Lobitos resident who had never entered the sea — waded into the water, took part in artistic mediations, and practiced therapeutic surfing.
Holding hands, they moved forward together, waiting for whoever fell furthest behind, in waters inhabited mostly by surfers who travel there in search of Lobitos’s famous waves. If one of them slowed down, the group would step back and wait. This was part of the collective methodologies at the heart of the workshop. As part of the activations, Javiera Espinoza, director of Aula de Mar (3), led a mediation based on an exercise developed by our foundation (4), through a game she called Archipiélago de historias — Archipelago of Stories — in which participants picked up stones from the Waves Lobitos headquarters, next to the beach, and used them to build shared narratives.
“It was a very meaningful exchange that led us to think about how we are situated in the Pacific. What united us was the ocean — the same waters at different temperatures. It was also interesting to learn part of the history of Lobitos, a place with a past marked by extractivism and colonialism, still visible today in the oil industry, through platforms among which humpback whales pass.”
Javiera is referring to the oil-driven character of this northern coastline, as well as to episodes of contamination that have mobilized part of this community of 1,400 inhabitants — including marine spills that have sparked protests. Lobitos has been exposed to these industrial facilities since the early twentieth century. Between 1997 and 2022, more than 400 spills were recorded (5), depleting biodiversity, artisanal fishing, and tourism. Faced with this tension between communities that depend on the ocean’s ecosystem services (6) and extractive industries, the need to coexist with and protect the sea from new perspectives has become urgent.
Throughout the two days, the concept of Imagi-mar — proposed by Javiera, a word game between “imaginar” (to imagine) and “mar” (sea) — began to emerge as a proto-slogan for the manifesto: an opening gesture toward projecting possible futures and sustainable ways of co-inhabiting the waters. To imagine the sea not as a postcard or a resource, but as a living environment that, as such, must be respected and approached with openness, flexibility, and responsibility.
“Through these experiences, we deepened our connection with the ocean in a shared way, despite the borders that separate us. Transnational contexts don’t come about very often, but all of us were able to inhabit this space — beyond human control, to a degree — while also drawing from a constant movement that resists any attempt to draw boundaries,” said Paul Merchant, academic at the University of Bristol.
Paul was one of the main driving forces behind the initiative, securing funding tied to his research interests at his home institution to make this collaboration possible. A researcher whose work has sought to bridge audiovisual creation, culture, creativity, and the environment, he conceived this journey as a way to activate transdisciplinary crossings. It was a path Paul had been exploring for some years alongside artists and communities in Peru and Chile, and he has been a collaborator of FMA since the pandemic — a period that bore fruit in the publication of a Policy Brief synthesizing strategies for addressing the socioecological crisis in a more integrated way.
Waves as a therapeutic and regenerative space
Entering the water to suspend one’s own subjectivity for a moment, letting the ocean unsettle certainties and open up new pedagogical questions. Submerging oneself in a place where education is transmitted not only through words, but through immersion, play, and shared imagination. From this perspective, Karina Villarroel, coordinator of the Escuela del Océano Pichilemu (7), reflected on the connections between the work carried out at her institution and the experience lived in Lobitos: shared learnings in which surfing emerged as a methodology for addressing socioemotional dimensions.
“In Lobitos and in Pichilemu, it is not a tower or a monument that defines how a place is remembered, but a geographical phenomenon: the wave. Education centered on the sea is not only about raising awareness of the need to restore damaged ecosystems, but about transforming relationships: how we inhabit the coast, how we use the ocean, how we educate from within it. Surfing is ceasing to be merely a sport or a tourist attraction and becoming a pedagogical and community practice aimed at ecological, social, and emotional regeneration.”
After the days in Peru, Karina recounts, she deepened her message to promote therapeutic surfing training in Pichilemu, where she has sought to expand the idea of enjoying the sea without destroying it. She has also stayed in touch with her Peruvian colleagues, exchanging learnings and mutually enriching their practices. The ocean, the territorial manager reflects, is simultaneously an open classroom, a collective space, and a bodily experience — floating, paddling, facing fear — that becomes, necessarily, a pathway to deep, lasting, and regenerative learning. This last concept, she notes, will also be part of the future manifesto.
Where thought moves like water
For Paul, the ocean offers a singular condition: thinking about it requires stepping outside traditional disciplinary frameworks. “We impose names on it — Pacific, Atlantic — but the ocean exceeds our physical and mental categories,” he reflects. That impossibility of defining it entirely is, at the same time, an invitation to imagine new forms of knowledge, where the academic enters into dialogue with the pedagogical, the artistic, and the communal.
From that perspective, the workshop became a living laboratory: teachers, researchers, and cultural managers sharing methodologies, bodily experiences, and common questions. Moving from reflection to action, from the classroom to the water, was part of the transition that allowed socioecological education to be conceived as a field in motion — as changeable as the sea itself. In this regard, the concepts Paul proposes to develop in the manifesto are: connection, immersion, and imagination.
A sunset of contrasts
After plunging into the waves and taking part in pedagogical activations, the group made their way to Las Capullanas (8): a ravine at the edge of the beach where caves form and sunsets are unforgettable. It is also a place marked by pipelines and ecosystem fragmentation resulting from the oil industry. There they found that, beyond being a zone of geological shelter, it functions in practice as a marine dumping ground.
Some residents told them that cleanup days are organized, but that state protection policies are insufficient and the tide continues to deposit waste along the shore. The visit thus allowed the group to observe this and other contrasting layers of the landscape: twentieth-century English houses that still stand even though their British owners no longer inhabit these shores; a human geography where fishermen and surfers — local and foreign alike — share the waves through surfing as part of daily life, regardless of the season.
The days in Lobitos became a genuine encounter among people united by the sea. Three different voices and trajectories, and one shared conviction: those who educate never stop learning. The experience of a local teacher who entered the ocean for the first time as part of the workshop captured that spirit. Learning in the sea also means exposing yourself to play, inhabiting your body, taking a risk, and accompanying others through that process.
The bodily experiences made the path forward clear: Paul Merchant pressed the idea of building transdisciplinary bridges between academia, art, and communities; Javiera Espinoza called for integrating creative and sensory practices into teacher training — practices that recognize local knowledge; and Karina Villarroel emphasized that embodied experiences tied to the sea — such as surfing — are pedagogical tools for weaving socioecological bonds. With this in mind, the network will continue to expand, advancing toward the drafting of the manifesto and the educational materials born from these days together.
Footnotes
[1] A nonprofit organization that facilitates workshops, educational programs, and festivals in rural schools and fishing communities.
[2] An organization dedicated to community development through educational programs in surfing, art, skateboarding, and environmental education.
[3] Aula de Mar is an environmental education initiative for marine conservation and the strengthening of community bonds with the ocean.
[4] Inspired by the exercise “Natural Oracle: Micro-narratives about my territory” from Sala Libre.
[5] According to a report by the Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (CNDDHH) and the NGO Oxfam.
[6] The direct and indirect benefits that nature provides to human beings for their survival and wellbeing, including climate regulation, resource provision, and cultural values.
[7] Escuela del Océano Pichilemu is an educational space run by Parley for the Oceans and Fundación Rompientes, dedicated to activities and workshops for learning about ocean culture and the care of the seas.
[8] Las Capullanas were women leaders and governors of the Tallán culture on the northern coast of Peru (Piura) before and during the arrival of the Spanish. They held absolute political and religious authority, and were known for their independence and leadership in a society with a strong feminine influence.
About the voices in this chronicle
Javiera Espinoza is an ecotourism administrator and holds a Master’s degree in Geography with a specialization in environmental education for conservation. She is co-founder of Aula de Mar, through which she develops environmental education and interpretation initiatives to strengthen bonds with the ocean and coastal communities, with an emphasis on experiential approaches and sensory learning for marine conservation. She has also participated as an academic and collaborator in educational projects and publications related to ecology, culture, and territory.
Karina Villarroel is coordinator of the Escuela del Océano Pichilemu — an initiative led by Parley for the Oceans and Fundación Rompientes — where she develops educational and pedagogical activities to strengthen the connection between people and the sea. She is an occupational therapist with a background in psychosocial intervention and ocean education, linked to community conservation work and to physical and mental wellbeing through contact with marine ecosystems.
Paul Merchant is an academic at the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) specializing in Latin American cinema and visual culture. He has developed transdisciplinary work that bridges research, audiovisual creation, and critical thinking applied to sociocultural and environmental themes, and has collaborated with Fundación Mar Adentro on initiatives that connect art, education, and ecology to address socioecological challenges from multiple perspectives.
