Can fishermen live from the sea without fishing?

“They fished there for many, many years… from father to son, from son to grandson, from grandson to great-grandson and so on… many families lived off the sea…they lived off the sea so much that now there are not as many fish as before… fishermen are now painters, guards, bricklayers or whatever they can… but for a fisherman, what really matters, is to live off the sea!

And then along came some professors and closed off the sea… they created something called a marine biology reserve… you can’t fish there anymore… it’s a place for studying, for research, for professors to stay.

Turns out that, since you couldn’t fish there anymore, fish and other sea creatures reappeared… the fish there are big, the way they used to be… I want to fish there, but if I and everybody else go there, again, there will be no fish left…”

In quite a romantic way, the passage above summarizes the relationship between the creation of the Tamandaré Marine Biological Reserve and the local fishing community. We talked with researchers, divers, fishermen and volunteers about how the local community, in particular the fishermen, sees the reserve. To conserve the coral reef and develop scientific projects in this area, the creation of this reserve has imposed many restrictions on its users.

One of these projects caught our attention: set up by the “Instituto Recifes Costeiros” – IRCOS (Coastal Reefs Institute) it aims at training local tourist guides for sustainable tourism in the area around the reserve. IRCOS hopes to increase support for the reserve by the local community. The project tries to involve in particular the fishermen by offering them an alternative to uncontrolled fishing that threatens the reef ecosystem. We especially liked this project because it clearly demonstrated that conservation efforts are much more effective when inserted into the local context.

We had the privilege of getting to know the project as “guinea pig” tourists. While we were learning, we went on a jangada (traditional fishing raft) trip with Sr. Rubens, dove in the area around the reserve and swam in natural pools. We did all of this, surrounded by the beauty of a place like Tamandaré, where even the ugly beach is an eyeful.

The Tamandaré Marine Biology Reserve was created in 1997 as part of the Coastal Reef Project. This project aimed at recovery and reproduction of the region’s coral reefs. This type of reserve is one of the most restrictive conservation units that exist in Brazilian environmental law. Only scientific research and educational activities are allowed in them. All other activities are forbidden. This reserve covers 1% of a Coral Coast Environmental Preservation Area (APA), which extends over around 413 thousand hectares and is 136 km long.

Coral Reef ecosystems are a sort of maritime forest with the most diverse marine habitat in the world, fostering extraordinary amounts of plants and animals. In Tamandaré and several other points covered by the APA, excessive and predatory fishing, coastal development, trash, deforestation and many other things have lead to the degradation of this environment. The Marine Biology Reserve is an important attempt to keep this environment alive and increase knowledge on how it works.

Despite the importance of this reserve, many fishermen do not welcome its existence. The older ones, who used to fish in the now closed off area, sometimes refer to the project’s coordinators sarcastically as “the ones who think they own the sea”. In addition, many others still try to fish in the restricted area, increasing the demand for monitoring.

Over the last 13 years, many factors have lead to the current relationship between the creators and managers of the reserve and the local fishing community. For one, suspicions rose in the community with the creation of the closed reserve, which initially had a temporary character and now will be kept closed indefinitely. Another factor is the project’s success to increase and recover biodiversity in the protected area. In particular, many fish and other animal species of economic value are now inhabiting the area once again.

The marine biology reserve was created initially for a period of 3 years and had the support of the fishermen. At that time, most of them expected that the area would later be reopened to fishing. This did not happen. The closed reserve exists until today due to the success obtained by the Coastal Reef Project in terms of conservation and research.

Today, it is very likely that the area will remain restricted. A project to manage the marine resources in the area proposing the definitive creation of the reserve is under analysis by ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institut of Biodiversity Conservation), with a high probability of approval.

The Marine Biological Reserve of Tamandaré is a successful benchmark and has been replicated in other places of the Coral Coast Preservation Area by demand of the municipalities Paripuera, Maragogi and São José da Coroa Grande. These municipalities see the great tourist potential that a closed coral reef reserve has for its surroundings. Moreover, the area also has the support of the Municipal Environmental Defense Council (COMDEMA) of Tamandaré, a civil society deliberative body created after 1997 with the participation not only of fishermen, but also local businesses people, civil servants, and other interest groups.

In addition to the initial expectation that the area would be reopened, another factor influences the fishermen’s outlook on the restricted area: due to the conservation efforts the area now holds greater amounts of fish and other marine life with economic value than other areas in Tamandaré. Many fishermen, however, do not make the connection between greater occurrence of marine life and the reserved area. They only seem to care about the immediate economic opportunity and are therefore against the restrictions imposed for conservation.

It is important to point out that not all fishermen think this way. As Beatrice Padovani Ferreira, a professor at the Department of Oceanography of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), told us, the Coastal Reefs Project, initially, and IRCOS later, did more than promote conservation and greater understanding of nature. One of its side effects was the discovery of scientific talents within the community of Tamandaré itself. That is how Edvaldo (Nino) Costa went from being a fishmonger to becoming a university lecturer; Alberto Santos went from sugarcane cutter and fisherman to biologist and president of the COMDEMA and Manoel Pedrosa, from former intern to Director of IRCOS.

Expectations towards reopening of the area for fishing, even after proven success in terms of conservation show, however, that part of the community still does not accept the reserve and does not grasp its importance for maintaining the region’s ecological balance. This puts the work carried out within the preserved area at risk and raises the monitoring costs.

Diving - Mergulho

That is where the training program by IRCOS, with support from SOS Mata Atlântica and Avina comes in. It is an attempt to create an alternative to fishing, by promoting tourism activities in the reserve’s surroundings.

The conservation effects of the protected areas have overcome its geographical limits. As they say around here “the fish do not know the reserve’s limits” and neither do the coral reefs. Consequently, not only the reserve, but also its surroundings have recovered the beauty of their corals and serve as habitat to several marine animals and plants that had previously disappeared.

IRCOS works alongside the community to develop and organize this important potential or tourism. Manuel Pedrosa, director of the Institute, told us that several activities were created in order to achieve this goal.

Tourism activities of low environmental impact and with economic value were identified: diving trails, natural reef pools, etc.
Courses were offered to train local guides and pass on scientific and technical knowledge on the local fauna and flora, activities with low environmental impact and others.
Technical support for the development of a cooperative – Nautica Ambiental (Environmental Nautic), with the purpose of managing the region’s tourism by the guides themselves and supporting the monitoring of the reserve.

Its goal is not only an orderly, low impact, economic exploration of the reserve’s surroundings, but also an increase in the number of people in the community that understand that this area, if preserved, may bring more (and longer-term) benefits than if it is reopened. The more people hold the reserve in their minds and hearts, the easier it will be to watch over that area.

The IRCOS project is a first step but there are still many obstacles ahead. Only 24 fishermen – around 5-10% of the total local fishing community – have adhered to the idea of the cooperative (link) for touristic exploration of the surroundings. Some fishermen fear that it is an attempt to increase the area of conservation and prefer to stay out.

The institute’s expectation is that as tourism grows and begins to show itself as an important economic alternative for the region, a greater number of fishermen will choose to carry out activities with lower impact and understand that it is possible to live off the sea without exploiting nature!

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Contact the Cooperative Náutica to schedule trips like the ones we did: nauticaambiental@hotmail.com