A growing appetite for jellyfish promised a boom for fishers in Honduras. But then the storms came

In 2014, Chinese investors visited La Mosquitia, a remote region in eastern Honduras. Amazed by the abundant jellyfish, they eagerly installed a processing plant to export the product to China, where they are served as a delicacy. Encouraged by the new investments, local communities adopted jellyfish fishing, which quickly became a critical source of income. The trade provided economic benefits in an area with few jobs, increasing local incomes and building community resilience, despite concerns that large-scale jellyfish fishing can disturb marine ecosystems by disrupting food chains. Most local fishers saw it as a safer alternative to dangerous lobster fishing…