Territorialidade, socioeconomia e conhecimento ecológico local da pesca artesanal de dourada (Brachyplatystoma rouseauxii Castelnau, 1855) e Piramutaba (B. Vaillantii Valenciennes, 1840) na Calha do Rio Solimões-Amazonas

Abstract

Fishing in continental Waters constitutes in one of the most important food fountain and money to the Amazon population. Since the 70 decade the fishing activities of Siluriforms has been showed up in the Amazon fishing, establishing an important social and economic net to the region. This study objective is to contribute to the formulation of management politics related to the goldfish (Brachyplatystoma rouseauxii) and piramutaba (B. vaillantii) fishing activities, that presented overfishing risks. The spatial and time standard of the activities are analyzed, considering the local environmental knowledge, as well the fishing strategies, territorialities, organization processes and the economical dependence degree to the activities along to Solimões-Amazonas river channel. The studies were realized in the main departure ports and in the rural communities of 29 country sides in the Amazonas and Pará States. The camp data were obtained between august in 2002 and july in 2003, based in 1520 partly saturated interviews. Also, the participants’ observation and free interviews were realized with local consulters. It’s deniable the essentially commercial character of catfishes fishing, thus it is noticed the spatial conformation, strongly related to the economical arrange that makes the market and stimulates the fishing exploitation of the studies species. The social economic profile and the dependence degree of the catfishes handcraft fishers haven’t been presented in a homogenous form in the Solimões-Amazonas river channel and defined from the socio economic and fishing criterions in four spatial management units: Estuary, Low Amazonas, Low Solimões and High Solimões. This heterogeneity is reflected in the economic dependence of the fishers to the catfishes fishing, by the way, the Estuary fishers are the most dependent, followed by the Low Amazonas and High Solimões fishers. The Low Solimões fishers are the less dependent. Even thus, it is noticed that the catfishes fishing along the whole axis contributes with more than 40% of the familiar annual gains of the fishers. Along the river channel, there were registered different property regimes and activities organization, classified in: (i) collective fishingline use; (ii) fishing-line communities; (iii) restrict fishing-line use. These regimes should be considered in the moment of the management implantation, because they are strategies that reflect the historical accommodation of the use conflicts of these resources and it has permitted the spatial ordination, resource use regulation and the activity organization. The Local Ecologic Knowledge – LEK of the catfishes fishers is indispensible in the fishing exploration in the Solimões-Amazonas river, reducing this fishing modality uncertainty. Considering that these species realizes large migrations in the whole Solimões-Amazonas river channel and its tributes to the total reach scale of the management should be macro scaled, having the Amazon basin as a management macro unit. The spatial units identified in this study could facilitate the governors and society management, which mechanisms should be adopted in a way to guarantee the higher representative and to fortify the local management capable. Therefore, to reach this level of management is vital that the State and the development agency invest in the improvement of socio-politic action of the local population and resource user groups, respecting its logic and knowledge.