Surfing’s big break: how climate crisis insurance may save El Salvador’s waves | Oceans

IAt the end of the 1990s, in El Salvador, Rodrigo Barraza set out in search of every surfer’s dream: an immaculate wave, far from the crowds. At the end of a rough dirt road, a few hours from any town, he found it: a little-known surf break on the country’s east coast, where long lines of waves form a sharp break to the right, surrounded by thousands of acres of rainforest.

“I fell in love with this place,” Barraza says. In 2004, he opened a small hotel there and, with some surfing friends, founded a tourist association. They have developed sustainable tourism standards and are committed to protecting the surrounding biodiversity ecosystem. of rare dry tropical forests, rivers and mangroves. They called him Oriente Salvaje – the “Far East”.

Today, Oriente Salvaje, which stretches over 19 kilometers of coastline, has a thriving surf industry that attracts intrepid wave chasers, who venture to its world-class breaks, Las Flores and Punto Mango. A surf break is a natural feature such as a sandbar, coral reef or headland that gives rise to ocean waves that break to form surfable waves. However, this surfer’s idyll is increasingly threatened by climate change. Intense tropical storms cause flooding, whipping up perfect waves, blocking transportation routes and keeping surfers away.

Without them, the local economy – a constellation of hotels, restaurants, surf shops, fishermen and drone experts – grinds to a halt. “Surf tourism is the backbone of our local economy,” says Barraza. “However, this same dependence makes us very vulnerable to climate-related disruptions. »

Concerned about the future of the community, Barraza partnered in 2023 with Save the Waves, an international surfing nonprofit, and together they made an unusual decision: they took out an insurance policy for Oriente Salvaje.

This is not just any policy, but a type of parametric insurance that can be used to support recovery from the impacts of climate change. Unlike traditional insurance, which requires several months to assess claims, parametric compensation is triggered as soon as damaging conditions cross a predetermined threshold: a particular wind speed, earthquake magnitude or precipitation level.

This model of rapid support has become attractive to landowners, fishermen and farmers whose homes and livelihoods are vulnerable to climate change. It also has conservation appeal: parametric payments have enabled the restoration of several coral reefs around the world after a hurricane, helping to maintain their role as a storm buffer and fish nursery.

The Oriente Salvaje project is the first time parametric insurance will be tested in surfing. Save the Waves was started “by a diverse group of international surfers who saw their favorite surf spots around the world being destroyed” and wanted change, says Nik Strong-Cvetich, the organization’s executive director.

One part of their work is designating global surfing reserves, a program that recognizes “the huge overlap between biodiversity and surfing sites,” says Strong-Cvetich, and works with local groups to protect these places. Oriente Salvaje received this designation in 2024, after a campaign by Barraza and other local groups.

The organization also studies surfers’ economic contribution to local economies, revealing that they bring in tens of millions of dollars each year in many places. This is useful data to encourage governments and local authorities to protect these ecosystems, he says.

But knowing that many of these thriving surf spots are threatened by extreme weather, parametric insurance “has become a strange obsession,” Strong-Cvetich says. “We traveled the world looking for places that were easily disrupted by a weather event and relied heavily on the surf economy.” Oriente Salvaje seemed like a natural choice for their driver.

The organization has since worked with international insurance broker Willis Towers Watson (WTW) to develop a bespoke financial model, in collaboration with the local community. First, they needed to identify a measurable trigger for payments. WTW considered many parameters, but “rainfall appears to represent the strongest and most appropriate single-trigger option for the region,” says Juanita Blanco, director of alternative risk transfer solutions for Latin America at WTW.

This has been supported by 40 years of rainfall data coupled with ten years of data on the number of surfer visits, which revealed that wetter conditions cause more disturbance, says Diego Sancho Gallegos, director of conservation programs at Save the Waves. “We found that every time there was a really big storm, there was a clear drop in surfer attendance, associated with the accumulated rainfall.”

A survey of 50 local businesses showed that on average, 70% of their revenue depended on surf tourism. Many are informal operators such as surf photographers, guides and boat drivers who are particularly vulnerable to changing weather conditions. “It’s crazy,” Strong-Cvetich said. “People can predict their income based on the surf report.”

Payment will be triggered once weather conditions reach extremes associated with an observable loss of revenue, according to Blanco. It will be distributed between a few hundred and several thousand beneficiaries in the region. The payment amount is still being determined, as well as which insurer it will be, but WTW is currently pitching the idea to several companies. If everything aligns, Save the Waves would like to have a pilot project underway by June to restart the wet surf season, Gallegos says.