The Propositional Models for Fisheries and Environmental Management in the Albardão Region, South of Rio Grande do Sul State

Abstract

The “Albardão” region, located on the extreme south coast of Brazil, is recognized for its expressive fishing productivity, resulting from the dynamics of the regional oceanic processes, which guarantees the development of a diversified fishery, one that supplies the industrial parks of Rio Grande (RS) and Itajaí (SC) and supports part of the fishing fleet of Santos (SP), besides a large contingent of foreign vessels. This region also has a great biodiversity and many endangered species of fish, birds, marine mammals and sea turtles, through bycatch or directed capture from intense fishing activity. Among this set of socioenvironmental conflicts, a recent proposal for the creation of a Marine Conservation Unit (UC) in the region stands out. If the implementation of the UC takes place according to the official plans, an increase in conflicts is predicted due to the restriction of access to fishing areas and resources for artisanal fishing communities and the suppression of activity by industrial fleet in large adjacent marine areas. This option would provoke a strong social and political rejection of conservation efforts, making it difficult to effectively implement UC's proposal, especially due to similar cases without considering user rights to access their areas. In order to subsidize this process regarding the best socioenvironmental options, an intensive bibliographical review and documentary analysis of the available publications on the theme and region was organized; a Geographic Information System was elaborated and the conceptual predictive scenarios were structured on the potential unfolding of the proposal (without the implementation of the UC; with the implementation as a National Park; and with the implementation as a Mosaic of UCs). The cost-benefit argument was developed for the most coherent option chosen (the Mosaic of UCs), unfolding it into two subsets, of smaller (a) and greater (b) scope and socioenvironmental relevance.