In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Pearl oysters (Pinctada mazatlanica and Pteria sterna) have played a fundamental role in the environmental history of the Gulf of California region for nearly five hundred years.1 Pearls’ value derived from geographic and temporal coincidences in which ancient myths and legends that linked pearls to great wealth became enmeshed with changing human interactions with natural ecosystems. Christopher Columbus’s accidental arrival in the Americas was the first step in opening the Gulf of California to European eyes, and with it the natural pearl oyster beds that soon became famous for the quality of their nacre and pearls. This discovery laid the foundations for what we call the “Pearl Myth,” which drove the exploration of the Gulf and colonial settlement of the Baja California peninsula. The Pearl Myth was tinged with abstract, fairytale-like symbolism that derived from ancient European chivalry novels but was the guiding economic principle and political basis for the colonization of Baja California in the eighteenth century. The market for the Gulf’s nacre (sometimes misidentified as “mother of pearl”) and pearls emerged in the 1730s and led to the foundation of La Paz, which has been recognized as a major pearling center ever since. The Pearl Myth was grounded in commerce. For centuries, nobles and magnates collected jewelry and luxury items generously inlaid with nacre chapter eleven Episodes of Environmental History in the Gulf of California Fisheries, Commerce, and Aquaculture of Nacre and Pearls Mario Monteforte and Micheline Cariño 245 and pearls. The world’s greatest personal fortunes and national treasures nearly always included such objects, many of which are now prominently displayed in museums, churches, and personal collections. Artisans and factories acquired great quantities of shells used to inlay fine objects with nacre decorations. Their handiwork can be seen throughout the world, in ceilings, doors, columns, and altars of temples and churches; in thrones and furniture adorning palaces and castles; in coffers and boxes of all shapes and sizes; in the formerly enormous button-making industry; in nacre decorations on firearms and other hand weapons; in pins, brooches, combs, hairbrushes, cufflinks, necktie sets, and other adornments and accessories for gentlemen; and in the huge quantity of jewelry with nacre and pearls that adorned royalty, celebrities, and countless women through the ages. The economic flows generated by pearl oysters prompted settlement in many isolated regions, but that did not keep traders from devastating wild populations in a race to meet global demand. The productivity of famous pearling regions gradually declined to near extinction in places such as the Red Sea, the Gulf of Manaar, the Seas of Timor and Arafura, northwestern Australia, South and Southeast Asia, the Philippines, South Pacific islands and atolls, the coasts and islands of the Antilles, and the Gulf of Panama. The Gulf of California was the last region to experience exhaustion, even though it was a major world supplier. The introduction of modernized diving suits in 1874 intensified the activity but did not extinguish the natural beds as in other regions, because farming activities in the Bay of La Paz in the early 1900s helped to support the natural repopulation of wild stocks. The Compañía Criadora de Concha y Perla de Baja California (Baja California Pearl and Shell Breeding Company, or CCCP) was the world’s first successful experiment in massive cultivation of pearl oysters (P. mazatlanica in this case) and allowed its founder, Gastón J. Vives, to build a uniquely successful business.2 The CCCP used a method of extensive aquaculture to cultivate pearl oysters.3 The main product was the excellent nacre of P. mazatlanica destined for the European market; pearls were a natural and welcome byproduct of the process, and they appeared in greater numbers and quality on the natural oyster beds. Vives marketed hundreds of beautiful pearls in New York, London, Paris, and Venice before local rivalries and the violence of the Mexican Revolution ultimately led to the looting and destruction of the company’s installations in 1914. Even so, the CCCP had left a mark on regional socioeconomic structure, and its closure severely restricted employment and other economic activities associated with pearl oyster farming . Moreover, the end of continuous larvae supply and recruitment from 246 · Mario Monteforte and Micheline Cariño reproduction of the millions of farmed pearl oysters had significant repercussions for the regional ecosystem—a blow made all the more severe when the new revolutionary government lifted previous restrictions on the fisheries . Less than fifteen years later, the wild stocks...

Share