Projects - South America

Food Security, Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Bolivian Amazon (2011-2014)
Coastal Communities Development in NE Brazil (2008-2010)
Brazil Inland Fisheries: Sustainable Livelihoods and Conservation (2003 - 2007)
Migratory Fishes of South America: Biology, Fisheries and Conservation Status (2003)
Brazil Migratory Fish Conservation (1999-2001)

Food Security, Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Bolivian Amazon (2011-2014)

WFT and Asociación Faunagua's proposal to address food security in Bolivia's Amazon by better managed fisheries and small-scale aquaculture, was one of the top three chosen by IDRC and CIDA for funding in the first round of their new CIFSRF program. Over 270 proposals were received from all over the world, with only 10 receiving funding.

Bolivia, in the heart of South America, contains some of the world's greatest biodiversity and physically and culturally contrasting environments. It is also a world leader in thought and innovative policies on environmental sustainability and indigenous leadership, but remains the continent's poorest and most sparsely populated country.

WFT and Faunagua's project includes partnerships with Canadian universities (UVic, UBC, St. Mary's), a variety of Bolivian University, government, community groups and NGOs, and Brazilian government, university, and NGO partners from previous projects. We will be doing research, training, and development – documenting current levels of food insecurity, fisheries and aquaculture in the Bolivian Amazon and identifying the key factors that hold these back from sustainable improvement. Development activities will implement changes in two pilot areas (Riberalto and Trinidad), in a way that allows for replication of the results in both Bolivia and neighbouring countries.

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Coastal Communities Development NE Brazil (2008 - 2010)

"Gente da Maré (People of the Tides) Project"

Coastal communities of northeastern Brazil are some of the most disadvantaged in the country. The lower social classes in these areas have traditionally relied on artesanal fisheries of coastal marine resources, including fish, shellfish, and algae. Fishing of bivalve molluscs is an important economic activity in many coastal communities of northeastern Brazil. However, decades of uncontrolled and unplanned collection has exhausted natural stocks. In addition, pollution from urban development is seriously contaminating remaining clam beds - resulting in serious environmental and socio-economic consequences.

WFT and it's partners, the Center for Global Studies at the University of Victoria, SEAP - Brazil, and a variety of others, initiated the "People of the Tides" project through CIDA's Brazil-Canada Knowledge Exchange for Equity Promotion (KEEP). This project, within the KEEP framework, promoted equity and citizenship through the development of sustainably managed coastal resources in traditional communities of the northeast coast of Brazil.

Through a bilateral cooperation between Brazil and Canada, the project built better living conditions for small coastal communities of the states of Bahia, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, and Paraíba. Some of the objectives included bringing Canadian know-how and technology in mollusc and seed production, equitable development of community-based mariculture, and co-management practices of natural resources to these needy communities.

Click here for a full list of project partners

Click here to view a YouTube video of this project

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Brazil Inland Fisheries: Sustainable Livelihoods and Conservation (2003- 2007)

In January 2003, building on the success of our Brazil Migratory Fish Conservation project, World Fisheries Trust began an expanded four years project, which places greater emphasis on the social side of Brazilian inland fisheries, including community-based management. The project focuses on the northeast and central-west portions of the country in the basin of the Sao Francisco River. Its overall aim is to create and implement a model for sustainable socio-environmental river management. The project balances the transfer of "hard" fisheries technologies with an equal social component, and is divided into six sub-projects and cross-cutting themes:

• Building fishing community capacity for co-management
• Building sustainable livelihoods in fishing communities
• Transferring technologies to secure and build the resource
• Developing policies for sustainable fishing and community participation in management
• Creating awareness of Brazilian river fisheries and ecosystems
• Creating opportunities for youth and families.

For more details check out the PROJECT WEBSITE!

Click here for project reports.

WFT is working with forty Brazilian and fifteen Canadian partners representing communities, government, academia, industry and NGOs. Click here to see a full list of partners.

The project is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

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Migratory Fishes of South America: Biology, Fisheries and Conservation Status (2003)

Edited by Joachim Carolsfield, Brian Harvey, Carmen Ross, and Anton Baer

Co-published by World Fisheries Trust, IDRC and World Bank - 2004

ISBN 1-55250-114-0

Paperback 380 pp. 

Fish species that migrate within the great rivers of South America support important local fisheries but are little known outside their native range. This book, represents the first collection of the work of local scientific experts on these remarkable fish. The authors cover the Upper Paraná, Paraguay-Paraná, Uruguay and São Francisco basins in Brazil, as well as the Brazilian and Colombian Amazon. They discuss not only the principal migratory species and their fascinating relationship with the water cycle in the rivers and wetlands, but also the fisheries they support, and their often precarious conservation status.

Click here to view the table of contents.

Click here to order the book.

Full text versions of the books are available on the IDRC and Word Bank (subscription to eLibrary needed) websites.

The project was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the World Bank.

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Brazil Migratory Fish Conservation (1999-2001)

Brazilian rivers are home to a spectacular variety of large migratory fish species of high economic and social value. These species make long annual journeys upriver to spawn, but their biology and distribution are not well known. Like so much of the world's freshwater species, many of these migratory fish have been declining in numbers and diversity for decades. As with salmon in North America, the reasons for the decline in South American migratory fish stocks are complex. They include overfishing, pollution, loss of habitat, deforestation and the construction of dams which block migration routes.

Together with a network of Brazilian and Canadian partners, WFT carried out a 3-year project to promote the conservation and awareness of migratory fish species in four major river basins in Brazil. The project's goal, "to ensure the preservation, and thus permit the utilization, of native Brazilian fish genetic diversity", was accomplished though training, technology development, networking and public awareness in both Canada and Brazil.

Click here for more details on project results.

Click here for a full list of project partners.

The project was funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

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