BackgroundIn small-scale fishery, information provided by fishers has been useful to complement current and past lack of knowledge on species and environment.MethodologyThrough interviews, 82 fishers from the largest fishing communities on the north and south borders of a Brazilian northeastern coastal state provided estimates of the catch per unit effort (CPUE) and rank of species abundance of their main target fishes for three time points: current year (2013 at the time of the research), 10, and 20 years past. This information was contrasted to other available data sources: scientific sampling of fish landing (2013), governmental statistics (2003), and information provided by expert fishers (1993), respectively.Principal FindingsFishers were more accurate when reporting information about their maximum CPUE for 2013, but except for three species, which they estimated accurately, fishers overestimated their mean CPUE per species. Fishers were also accurate at establishing ranks of abundance of their main target species for all periods. Fishers' beliefs that fish abundance has not changed over the last 10 years (2003–2013) were corroborated by governmental and scientific landing data.ConclusionsThe comparison between official and formal landing records and fishers' perceptions revealed that fishers are accurate when reporting maximum CPUE, but not when reporting mean CPUE. Moreover, fishers are less precise the less common a species is in their catches, suggesting that they could provide better information for management purposes on their current target species.

Several factors influence catches and the sustainability of fisheries, and such factors might be different depending on the scale on which fisheries work. We investigated the existence of possible subdivisions within small-scale fisheries (SSF) themselves, regarding their economic performance and relative social and environmental impacts to understand which categories of these two types of fleets are best positioned to support sustainability. By doing so, we investigated if it is a good strategy for SSF to aim to grow towards larger scales. We obtained economic and ecological data from landing samplings and information on technological efficiency of this fleet, using a northeastern Brazilian state as a case study. We defined a cut-off point to separate the SSF into two categories of boats, according to their size and gear. We compared their cpue and the factors affecting it within each category; we also compared economic (number of boats, number of landings, jobs, gears, catch, travel time and total time of the fishery, revenues, costs, profits, revenue per unit of effort, and profit per unit of effort) and ecological factors (vulnerability of species caught) between the two categories. We found that small boats spent less time fishing and employed comparatively more people per landed value and catch. The cpue and profits of small boats were also higher. Both large and small boats exploit species with the same overall vulnerability. Therefore, being smaller, even within the SSF category, seems to be a more advantageous social and economic strategy for guaranteeing higher catches and more employment opportunities per catch. These findings need to be taken into account when defining new policies, such as the distribution of subsidies that support or not the sustainable use of fishery resources.