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Observatory of Environmental Crime

First, spinoffs from the Colombian peace process are producing violent and disruptive consequences in Afro-Ecuadorian fishing villages. Many of the current efforts are focused on territorial inequality and post-conflict citizen security. However, we still know very little about how the Pacific Ocean is not only the home medium of marine life, but also a key scenario for peace building, community development, and environmental justice. In this light, Kaleidos has been working on setting up an Observatory of Maritime Justice that brings together Ecuadorian police officials, marine biologists, and fishery organizations in order to document, study, and publicly discuss shared problems and concerns around issues of security, climate science, and democracy. In doing so, we look at how maritime police cartography, ocean acidification research, and various fishing practices, interact and diverge in the Ecuadorian Pacific Coast. For instance, we seek to engage citizens in debating sensitive and complex topics such as whether a decade-long intensification of sea drug smuggling from Ecuador to Central and North America allowed for the repopulation of fish stocks and sea environments. The Observatory also wants to offer a platform for sharing and combining different kinds of data that are rarely correlated due to institutional constraints and lack of communication. For example, we ask how police visualizations of ocean temperature and transportation may be used for climate mitigation and adaptation strategies developed by marine scientists.