Artisanal Fishing on the Coast of Espírito Santo State, Southeastern Brazil: An Approach to Socioenvironmental Oceanography

Abstract

Artisanal fishing is an important traditional activity on the coast of Espírito Santo (ES) State, southeastern Brazil. Despite this, there is a lack of updated data on artisanal fishing and its interfaces with socioenvironmental oceanography. The present study describes the social profile of fishers (gender, age, education, and period of professional activity) and the fishing activity (fishing gear and target species) along the coast of Espírito Santo State. Interviews with semi-structured questionnaires were carried out with 366 artisanal fishers living in 10 fishing communities. The interviewed fishers are mostly male, with low education, who had been fishing for more than 41 years (32%). The fishers described 59 target ethnospecies, with eight being common in 90% (n = 9) of the communities under study. These workers use the following fishing gear: line, longline, gillnet, trawl net, and harpoon. Socioenvironmental oceanography enables obtaining basic information on artisanal fishing, which can support the development of public policies for the sector with a view to maintaining this activity in Espírito Santo State.

Landscape context and nutrients modify the effects of coastal urbanisation

“…El presente estudio representa un nuevo aporte al conocimiento de las seis especies de peces de interés comercial para la pesca artesanal de manera general y en especial para el Pacífico colombiano. Aunque se han documentados estudios relacionados con múltiples temas relacionados con las pesca artesanal como los son: caracterización de la pesca y pescadores, sus efectos en el ambiente, aspectos socioeconómicos, la pesca incidental, evaluación de artes más selectivos (Cabrera-Namora et al, 2009;Díaz-Ochoa et al, 1997;Martínez et al, 2014;Musiello-Fernandes et al, 2021;Reyna-González et al, 2019;. Sin embargo, la información de la influencia ambiental sobre las especies explotadas con fines comerciales por la pesca artesanal es incipiente.…”

Ficha de Priacanthus arenatus

“…No Brasil, a espécie possui registros na foz do rio Amazonas (AP/PA) (Moura et al, 2016), Maranhão (Rocha & Rosa, 2001), Ceará (Freitas & Lotufo, 2015, Atol das Rocas, Arquipélago Fernando de Noronha (Floeter et al, 2003), Rio Grande do Norte (Garcia-Junior et al, 2015), Paraíba (Rocha et al, 1998), Pernambuco, Alagoas (Ferreira & Cava, 2001), Bahia (Moura & Francini-Filho, 2006), Espírito Santo, incluindo a cadeia Vitória-Trindade (Pinheiro et al, 2015;Musiello-Fernandes et al, 2021) Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo (Mincarone et al, 2017;Rolim et al, 2017), Paraná (Spier et al, 2018), Santa Catarina (Lindner, 2014), Rio Grande do Sul (Haimovici & Mendonça, 1996).…”

Critical Points Concerning Artisanal Fishing: an Analysis from the Perspective of Artisanal Fishers in Southeastern Brazil

“…Artisanal fishery is an activity involving family labor that guarantees the income and subsistence of the members of traditional coastal communities, and fish stocks are important natural resources supporting this activity (Alves et al, 2019). Artisanal production is performed on small and medium scales and relies on diverse technologies and low autonomy vessels that operate close to the coast (Oliveira et al ,2016). In Brazil, this is an economic activity performed by fishers either "autonomously or as a family economy, with its own means of production or by means of a partnership contract, landed, and may use small vessels" (Brasil, 2009, art.…”

“…Public policies aimed at artisanal fishery do not always involve social, environmental, and economic criteria that are aligned with the local reality due to the devaluation of the traditional community knowledge that depends on this activity (Abreu et al, 2017). The traditional knowledge of marine fishers is considered to comprise detailed information about the environment; moreover, local actors from fishing communities are fundamental stakeholders in the safeguarding of environmental and fish stock health due to their economic and cultural dependence on this environment (Abreu et al, 2020) In some countries, such as Turkey, Greece, Canada, and the Caribbean islands, the comanagement of fisheries takes place between public authorities and fishing communities through the ongoing participation of both parties (Cadman et al, 2022;Ertör-akyazi, 2019). This comanagement enables the reduction of negative interferences and strengthens the dialog among stakeholders in the process of creating public policies aimed at managing fishery resources (Ertör-akyazi, 2019).…”

“…Stakeholders show interest in participating in decision-making processes, but their lack of dialog with managers hinders their participation (Abreu et al,2017).…”