The sea said: “This is mine, and I’m taking it”

More than thirty years ago NASA launched a satellite to understand the behavior of the oceans. Its observations confirmed an alarming phenomenon: sea levels are rising, and the rate of this increase is not only continuing but accelerating. Since 1880, the oceans have risen by more than 20 centimeters, and in the last 30 years, the speed of this growth has doubled. This phenomenon, caused by the thermal expansion of water and the melting of glaciers, is one of the clearest and most devastating signs of the climate crisis.

Sea level rise is not an isolated phenomenon; it is the direct result of increasing global temperatures. The World Meteorological Organization confirmed that 2024 was the hottest year on record.

Although climate change is a global challenge, its impact is not the same for everyone. The most vulnerable communities—the ones that have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions—pay the highest price.

Honduras is a clear example of this inequality. It has one of the highest poverty rates and one of the smallest middle classes in Latin America, according to the World Bank. Added to this is its extreme vulnerability to climate disasters. The Global Climate Risk Index ranked Honduras as the third most affected country by extreme weather events between 1993 and 2022. From 1998 to 2017, climate change caused losses equivalent to 1.8% of its GDP.

On the Pacific coast of Honduras, Cedeño, a small fishing town of about 5,000 inhabitants, is on the front lines of this crisis. Its beaches, located in the Gulf of Fonseca—a bay shared by Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua—were once a popular tourist destination, especially for residents of the capital, Tegucigalpa. The local economy depended on tourism and fishing, but in the last three decades, Cedeño has changed drastically. What were once busy and safe beaches are now landscapes marked by violent swells, constant flooding, tropical storms, and an ocean advancing without mercy.

The ocean advanced 40 meters inland in Cedeño between 1982 and 2015, while the beaches shrank by 120 centimeters per year, according to a study by the National Autonomous University of Honduras.

Cedeño's location in the Gulf of Fonseca worsens its vulnerability. Gulfs generally act as a funnel, concentrating waters during storms and swells, intensifying the effects of rising sea levels. In recent years, these events have become more frequent and destructive. According to José Rigoberto Ávila, deputy mayor of Marcovia—the municipality that governs Cedeño—this town used to experience a storm surge every three years, but now it faces three in a single year.

The degradation of natural ecosystems like mangroves worsens the crisis even further. Once crucial barriers against floods and essential breeding grounds for marine life, these ecosystems have been severely damaged by human activities. Without them, Cedeño faces greater risks of flooding, environmental degradation, and loss of livelihoods.

Dagoberto Majano, 62, walks along the beach of Cedeño carrying a rolled-up white poster. It is a worn-out map showing the parts of Cedeño that no longer exist. One of them is his childhood home, along with the homes of many of his fellow fishermen.

"The sea came and said, ‘This is mine, and I’m taking it.’ It took it, just like that. It didn’t ask for documents, it didn’t ask for permission—it just came in and destroyed everything," Dagoberto recalls under the shade of makeshift plastic roofs that provide some relief from the sun on the beach of Cedeño.

A few meters away, Adriana Teye lays out her belongings to dry in the sun, soaked from the latest floods. The house where she and her husband lived for more than twenty years is now underwater. This home was an annex to a vacation house surrounded by more than 200 coconut trees, owned by a wealthy family for whom Adriana worked as a caretaker.

She vividly remembers the day, shortly after Hurricane Mitch in 1998, when she saw it floating away with the current. Nostalgically, she looks at an old photograph of the house. "You should have seen how beautiful it was. It was the best house. We had drinking water there. Before, we had everything here. But not anymore—Cedeño is not the same as before," she says.

With the house gone, she also lost the job that had supported her family. Now, she lives in a precarious wooden house on the beach, barely surviving with a small business that has fewer and fewer customers. Year by year, she is forced to retreat further back due to the rising sea, but she has almost no space left—just a few meters away lie stagnant waters contaminated with community waste.

For Delmis Rodríguez, 67, the loss was more recent. Her home was completely destroyed in October 2023. Its remains are still visible in the sand in front of Los Delgaditos Beach.

Google Earth satellite images show Delmis’s house was at least 110 meters from the sea in 2004. "It was very nice, it was big. But what can we do? What the sea takes is never recovered."

She now lives in a makeshift house built by one of her sons a few meters away. When asked if she plans to move, she replies: “We have nowhere to go, we have to live here.”

Among the infrastructures lost to the rising waters, one stands out: the Michel J. Hasbun School. With more than 400 students, it was the only basic education center in the area. In 2018, it stopped operating after being destroyed by floods and storm surges. Today, children attend classes in an annex that does not meet educational demand, contributing to an increasing rate of school dropouts.

Fanny Villagras, 13, is one of the young people who no longer go to school. Her mother, María Luisa Montes, explains that the teenager left her studies to live with her partner, who is 18. “Look at how the sea left everything destroyed. This is no longer ours; it belongs to the sea. The school doesn’t exist anymore,” she says as she walks through the ruins of the educational center.

For community leader Dagoberto Majano, the lack of education increases the community’s vulnerability: “We have so many problems with alcoholism and drug addiction. Many people are being drawn into drug sales, and it’s creating conflict. There are many young people here who don’t know how to read or write. They’ve never been to school because their parents sent them out to fish from a very young age. But now, what happens? They go out to fish, and suddenly, they come back with nothing.”

A community as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as Cedeño is also more susceptible to organized crime and violence.

Fishing, once the foundation of Cedeño’s economy, is now barely surviving due to the drastic decline in fish populations. This has been a devastating blow to the community. Dagoberto remembers how easy it was to fish decades ago: “It might sound unbelievable, but before, you could throw a fishing line into the water without any bait. When the fish saw the hook shining, they thought it was food and would bite.” Now, often, he goes out fishing with others and returns empty-handed.

The loss of mangroves and pollution from shrimp farms have devastated marine ecosystems. “If you collect a clam from Los Delgaditos, when you cook it, it smells like diesel,” says Yeni Hernández, a member of the Women’s Shellfish Association. The group is working to reforest mangroves and promote sustainable tourism activities, though the road ahead is a long one.

With no economic alternatives, Cedeño’s fishermen find themselves trapped between a sea that no longer provides and a system that offers no support. “We don’t have any alternative projects in the community. We only live off fishing; we have no other source of income. If we don’t catch anything in the sea, we are left waiting for God’s will,” adds Dagoberto.

The climate crisis is driving displacement in Honduras. A study by the Honduran Alliance for Climate Change reveals that 95% of families in the southern region have at least one relative who has been displaced due to climate-related impacts, such as loss of livelihoods and difficulties accessing basic services like food. In Cedeño, this is evident: every person interviewed has family members who have left.

In Honduras, this factor is compounded by forced displacement due to violence. By mid-2024, more than 247,000 Hondurans had been internally displaced due to violence and criminal activities, including extortion, mobility restrictions, gender-based violence, and the forced recruitment of children and teenagers. Additionally, more than 338,000 Hondurans are refugees or have applied for asylum abroad.

Edwin Cruz, 33, fled to Cedeño at age 10 after criminal groups broke into his family’s home in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and killed his parents. He witnessed their murders while hiding under the bed. Not knowing where to go, he ran to the city market and boarded a bus to Cedeño because he had always heard about its beaches but had never seen the sea.

“I cried when I saw the sea. It was pure joy for me.”

With the community’s support, Edwin learned to read, write, and fish. But now, he faces displacement once again, as his wooden house stands just meters from the shore. Every year, the sea creeps closer.

Edwin cannot imagine a future anywhere but Cedeño, which he considers his home. “I like Cedeño because it’s a peaceful village. There’s no danger here. I’ve never even thought of leaving. Never,” he says. But he acknowledges that he may not have a choice in the future, “because the sea keeps advancing, reclaiming what belongs to it.”

Edwin's situation is a paradigm of what millions of people around the world endure. About 90 million forcibly displaced people live in countries with high to extreme exposure to climate-related hazards, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. Nearly half of all forcibly displaced people suffer the burden of both conflict and the adverse effects of climate change. For people already affected by violence, like Edwin, climate change represents yet another injustice.

Climate change could force up to 56,400 people within Honduras to relocate by 2050, according to World Bank figures, adding to the already large internally displaced population. These forced displacements come with additional risks, as people tend to move to cities with high levels of violence and control by criminal organizations.

During the last floods, Edwin’s house was completely submerged. “It was sad for me because every corner got wet. I slept like a little chick, a drenched little chick, until they came to put a sheet of metal on my roof.”

The extremely precarious living conditions add more pressure to life. “Right now, the fishing situation is that there’s nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing,” Edwin says. “At night I think. I hold the hunger in my stomach. When I wake up in the morning, I look for a way to put something in my stomach.”

Edwin hopes that if the sea ever reaches his home, a neighbor will lend him a new place to live. But if that doesn’t happen, he knows he will have to move again. If that eventuates, there is one place he is certain he will never return: Tegucigalpa.

While Edwin dreams of staying in Cedeño, others in the community believe the only way to survive is to leave. In 2018, María Luisa Montes risked her life traveling to the United States with her daughter Fanny due to the lack of fish, which had affected her food business. After her daughter suffered an accident and was in a coma for 16 days, María Luisa fell into depression and returned to Cedeño. Coming back meant starting from scratch, but now her only goal is to leave again.

“Look, there is nothing here. Absolutely nothing. We do nothing. There is nothing. The town is empty because people have left due to the needs we face here.”

“We have to live with the risk,” says Dagoberto about what the community can do. As a member of the Local Emergency Committee, he advocates for municipal authorities to support Cedeño. While emergency aid is critical during storm surges and floods, long-term solutions are needed. For him, there is only one: “The solution we’re asking for is relocation. We’re not asking for food rations. Yes, a ration will sustain us for a week, but the next week, we’re back in the same situation.”

María Luisa, meanwhile, gathers with the Women’s Shellfish Association to replant mangroves. “You know, mangroves give life to our shellfish, the curiles, the clams. Planting is what I love most. Up to 40 of us go out to plant, and we feel happy, motivated.” Together, they are also planning an educational and sustainable tourism project to show people how climate change is affecting Cedeño.

Meanwhile, the ocean continues to advance, taking homes, livelihoods, and fragments of history with each tide. The climate crisis is also a human crisis. In Cedeño, it is not measured in reports but in every wave that reaches farther than the last, in every family forced to move. As Delmis says:

“When that sea gets angry, you have to leave, or it will take you too.”

This report was produced while accompanying a team from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to Cedeño, Honduras.