Over the last two decades, the availability of subsistence fish for traditional communities in the middle Rio Negro (Barcelos, AM, Brazil) has declined, principally as a result of increased competition from commercial fisheries, and also due to climate change and increased sport fishing activity by tourists. Our research relies on traditional knowledge of ribeirinho communities to document the decline in abundance of subsistence fish and document the impact of competition from other fishing sectors. We conducted surveys in nine traditional communities, surveying over 90 percent of the adult populations of the communities. We conduct a statistical analysis of perceptions of the level of decline of subsistence fish stocks, as well as the reason for these declines. The statistical analysis relates these perceptions to the characteristics of the individual, the characteristics of the community and the characteristics of the location. As part of these surveys, we went with subsistence fishers to their fishing areas, took GPS markers of the points at which they fished and the points at which they experience conflicts with other fishers.
Results/Conclusions
These locations were mapped into satellite images using Google Earth and we used this information, in combination with published research on migratory behavior of important species, to establish subsistence fishing only zones. We also propose buffer zones in which sport fishing may be allowed, provided a payment for ecological services is made to the community. Since excessive sport fishing could lead to negative impacts, we suggest that the payment for ecological services be implemented through a system of individual transferable quotas for days of catch and release fishing.