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options. Fishery management of Brazilian estuaries urges accelerated actions: introduce rights and duties-based fishery management to guarantee the declaration of
every fisherman activities; enable fishers to organize themselves through the idea of
ecological sustainability and economic efficiency; and acquiring daily reports of
fish landings through stakeholder approach and co-management. Fishery pressure is
not the unique responsible for reduced estuarine production. Bycatch due to smallmesh nets, oxygen-consuming effluents, emerging pollutants, solid wastes, deforestation of mangrove forest for human purposes and human-driven changes in river
flow and estuarine morphology are rapidly changing the nature of a nursery environment. Co-management, long-term data and daily reports on production can help to
design stock assessment models, understand variations in biomass over time, detect
problems of uncontrolled fishing effort, point periods of seasonal habits for each
fishery resource, and, most importantly, guarantee that enough juveniles of each
living resource can be recruited to adult stocks. The compliance of ecological data
and biological research, robust data for landing stats and the social profile of the
fishery community seems to be the ideal approach to build proper rules of comanagement in Western Atlantic estuaries.
Keywords South American estuaries • Estuarine conservation • Co-management •
Fishery impacts • Fish resources overexploitation • Coastal management
20.1 Introduction
Fisheries management aims to focus on actions and plans to promote sustainable
ecological, biological and socio-economic benefits from the use of renewable
aquatic resources. Usually, this should result in annual surplus that can be harvested
without irreversible decrease in biological productivity (Beck et al. 2001; King
2007; Berkes 2009; Cochrane and Garcia 2009; Eide 2009; Isaac et al. 2010;
Longhurst 2010). Such measures should also result in environmental conservation –
a positive externality, since sustainable biological yields in wild populations can
only be achieved if they live in relatively good quality settings. Worldwide harvests
include at least 4 thousand species of aquatic animals, with a production of 120 million metric tons per year (Lackey 2005; FAO 2011). Traditionally the word “fish”
used in fisheries management includes not solely finfish, but a wide range of aquatic
organisms that are captured for income or subsistence (e.g., mackerel, tuna, guppies, sea turtles, seals, sea urchins, squid, clams, crabs and lobsters) (Blaber 2002;
Guebert-Bartholo et al. 2011). Although captures include many vertebrates that
nowadays are not the main focus of fishing, rather are groups and/or species of conservational concern such as marine turtles, sharks and marine mammals, estuarine
fisheries are mainly concentrated on finfishes and invertebrates (Beck et al. 2001;
Barletta and Costa 2009; Silva-Cavalcanti and Costa 2009; Blaber 2013; Guebert
et al. 2013).
M. Barletta et al.
options. Fishery management of Brazilian estuaries urges accelerated actions: introduce rights and duties-based fishery management to guarantee the declaration of
every fisherman activities; enable fishers to organize themselves through the idea of
ecological sustainability and economic efficiency; and acquiring daily reports of
fish landings through stakeholder approach and co-management. Fishery pressure is
not the unique responsible for reduced estuarine production. Bycatch due to smallmesh nets, oxygen-consuming effluents, emerging pollutants, solid wastes, deforestation of mangrove forest for human purposes and human-driven changes in river
flow and estuarine morphology are rapidly changing the nature of a nursery environment. Co-management, long-term data and daily reports on production can help to
design stock assessment models, understand variations in biomass over time, detect
problems of uncontrolled fishing effort, point periods of seasonal habits for each
fishery resource, and, most importantly, guarantee that enough juveniles of each
living resource can be recruited to adult stocks. The compliance of ecological data
and biological research, robust data for landing stats and the social profile of the
fishery community seems to be the ideal approach to build proper rules of comanagement in Western Atlantic estuaries.
Keywords South American estuaries • Estuarine conservation • Co-management •
Fishery impacts • Fish resources overexploitation • Coastal management
20.1 Introduction
Fisheries management aims to focus on actions and plans to promote sustainable
ecological, biological and socio-economic benefits from the use of renewable
aquatic resources. Usually, this should result in annual surplus that can be harvested
without irreversible decrease in biological productivity (Beck et al. 2001; King
2007; Berkes 2009; Cochrane and Garcia 2009; Eide 2009; Isaac et al. 2010;
Longhurst 2010). Such measures should also result in environmental conservation –
a positive externality, since sustainable biological yields in wild populations can
only be achieved if they live in relatively good quality settings. Worldwide harvests
include at least 4 thousand species of aquatic animals, with a production of 120 million metric tons per year (Lackey 2005; FAO 2011). Traditionally the word “fish”
used in fisheries management includes not solely finfish, but a wide range of aquatic
organisms that are captured for income or subsistence (e.g., mackerel, tuna, guppies, sea turtles, seals, sea urchins, squid, clams, crabs and lobsters) (Blaber 2002;
Guebert-Bartholo et al. 2011). Although captures include many vertebrates that
nowadays are not the main focus of fishing, rather are groups and/or species of conservational concern such as marine turtles, sharks and marine mammals, estuarine
fisheries are mainly concentrated on finfishes and invertebrates (Beck et al. 2001;
Barletta and Costa 2009; Silva-Cavalcanti and Costa 2009; Blaber 2013; Guebert
et al. 2013).
M. Barletta et al.