Tucked up in the far north of Peru you'll find Lobitos, a quiet coastal town known as one of the country's best places to surf. Its seven wave breaks crash and glide onto sandy beaches and rocky outcrops, and its sunsets are legendary. But the waves that draw crowds of surfers each year aren't just revered by those who ride them – their protection is enshrined in law.

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The unexpected benefits of surfing
(Image credit: Henry Espinoza)
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By Isabella Kaminski 19th February 2021
Surfers and the marine life of the coasts have a lot in common – including that
they depend on the ecosystems that make their lives, or sport, possible.
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ucked up in the far north of Peru you'll find Lobitos, a quiet coastal town known
as one of the country's best places to surf. Its seven wave breaks crash and
glide onto sandy beaches and rocky outcrops, and its sunsets are legendary.
But the waves that draw crowds of surfers each year aren't just revered by
those who ride them – their protection is enshrined in law.
In 2014, the ground-breaking Ley de Rompientes, or "law of the breakers", came into effect,
making Peru the first country in the world to give its waves legal protection. Under the law,
the development of infrastructure, oil and gas exploration and fishing activities that could
harm top-quality surf spots were restricted. More than once it has halted activity in Lobitos
that risked disturbing the waves. The law has been seen as so effective that surfers in Chile
are now campaigning for their own version.
Surf spots have proven to be highly emotive when it comes to preserving Peru's coasts.
"People take it very personally, and even go physically to stand in the place to stop the
machinery from removing the soil whenever these constructions have happened," says
Alejandro Pizarro, director of research and communications at Lobitos-based charity
EcoSwell. "It's a very tight-knit community."
But Peru's law of the breakers wasn't just based on affection for these beauty and sporting
spots, but a recognition that they contribute to the surrounding area economically and
environmentally. From the United States to Bali, a wave of evidence is building that
suggests surfing can be surprisingly beneficial to the coastal ecosystem.
Surfonomics
The idea of using economics to assess the value of surfing resources, branded
"surfonomics", has been around for a little over a decade. An early study in the field centred
on Mavericks in California, a famous break that throws up waves of 10-30 (3-9m), and
draws in huge crowds of spectators.
Those who love riding the waves can have a huge influence on the coastal ecosystems around them
(Credit: Getty Images)
Big wave surfer João de Macedo, a campaigner who was involved in the research, says
Mavericks already had legal protection as a national marine sanctuary, but surfonomics "was
something that when you talk to a politician [they could use to] justify conservation in a
more practical way". The net economic value of Mavericks was finally estimated at about
$24m (£17m) a year filtering through its local tourism industry.
WhenwepresentedoneofthestudiesinChile,theywerelike:
'Youguyshavegottobekiddingme.Surfersarespendingthat

3. much?'–NikStrong-Cvetich
Surfonomics studies have now been replicated at least a dozen spots across the world,
including Mundaka in Spain and Uluwatu in Bali, and the methodology has been refined
over the years to make it easier to replicate and quicker to complete. For many
communities, it's an important part of being recognised as a World Surfing Reserve, an
international designation that helps protect the local ecosystem for surfers and gives
weight to wider conservation efforts.
"It's not rocket science in terms of ecological economics," admits Nik Strong-Cvetich,
executive director of international environmental surf coalition Save The Waves, which
designates surf spots as World Surfing Reserves.
"When we originally started surfonomics, it was just to kind of say, 'Hey surfing has value'.
But now we want to make sure that we've proven the value of all these places we're
protecting. When we presented one of the studies in Chile, they were like: 'You guys have
got to be kidding me. Surfers are spending that much?' But, like, they are."
In fact, contrary to its laid-back image, surfing is a huge and lucrative international industry.
Having initially been reticent to assign a monetary value to waves, UK environmental surf
charity Surfers Against Sewage estimated in 2013 that surfing contributes £1-1.8bn ($1.4-
2.5bn) per year across the UK and could have an overall economic impact of as much as
£5bn ($7bn).
The local economy of Lobitos relies heavily on surfing, and protecting their waves in law was
intended to help safeguard that income (Credit: Alejandro Pizarro)
Back in Peru, EcoSwell's Pizarro, who has a background in political science, had always
suspected that surfers made a big contribution to Lobitos. And while the town had its waves
under legal protection, surfonomics was an opportunity to understand just how much the
town depended on surfing.
Theideaofhavingstatsistobeabletoarguethatthere'shuge
importanceintakingcareoftheseenvironmentalissues,
becauseoftheamountofmoneytheymean–Alejandro
Pizarro
So EcoSwell set up a survey, headed by Marcos Abilio Bosquetti, a management researcher
at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil and member of the International
Association of Surfing Academics. The aim was to find out how much surfing was worth to
the community, asking how much people spent, where they came from and what they
valued in the area.

4. When the charity crunched the numbers in 2020, together with Bosquetti, even they were
surprised by how much: $3.6m (£2.6m) in 2019 – a substantial portion of the municipality's
total annual budget.
The other thing that surprised Pizarro was how many people would not return to Lobitos for
environmental reasons such as visible trash or the creaking public sewage system, which, in
his own words, "looks like a horror film". Tourists were particularly put off by the presence
of oil rigs and pumping sites, which are still active on and offshore.
Surfonomics surveys showed that tourists did not approve of oil extraction at Lobitos (Credit:
Alamy)
Pizarro hopes the study will encourage public authorities to improve facilities in the town
and perhaps even discourage oil extraction. "The idea of having stats is to be able to argue
that there's huge importance in taking care of these environmental issues, because of the
amount of money they mean."
And while Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on international tourism, Pizarro hopes
that this might actually incentivise serious investment in Lobitos to help tempt tourists
back.
Coastal guardians
As well as restricting development and cleaning up wastewater and rubbish, the protection
of surfing spots has been linked to wider positive impacts on the marine environment. One
reason why is that the very seafloor features that create good waves also create good
habitats for marine life.
Naturalsurfbreaksdependontheuniquegeophysical
propertiesoftheseafloorwhichincludethesebenthic
ecosystems–ChristelScheske
"Natural surf breaks depend on the unique geophysical properties of the sea floor which
include these benthic ecosystems," says Christel Scheske, marine and coastal governance
initiative coordinator at the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law.
"By protecting surf breaks from threats such as infrastructure development [such as piers or
breakers], you inadvertently also protect these same geophysical properties that the
benthic ecosystems require to exist."
The benthic regions – the seafloor, and the waters near it – are particularly rich in
biodiversity, she adds. They provide habitats for fish, the growth of marine plants and algae
that can capture carbon, and they also protect the coast from erosion and flooding by
buffering wave action with their flora.