The Use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Fishers in the Diagnosis of Fishery Resources in Areas of Deployment of Large Projects

The determination and monitoring of impacts of large projects in the Amazon are limited by the lack of primary environmental data. We evaluated the use of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of fishermen in the middle portion of the Madeira River on the commercial species in the generation of knowledge for monitoring of large hydroelectric dams in the Amazon. Meetings were held with groups of fishermen in 7 points of the fisheries monitoring program of Santo Antonio Energia (SAE), during the period from April to December 2009. Half-structuralized interviews had been carried through in order to register the TEK on 8 biological variables and to construct mental maps that describe scenarios on the fishing front of current and future deployment of two major developments in the Madeira River basin. Overall, the results showed that communities had a wide knowledge about the main species exploited by commercial fishing in the region, and these results were confirmed in most cases (about 70%) by literature. This study confirms the refined knowledge of the fishermen on the biology of the species they explore and suggests that the TEK should be taken into obtain biological data and the construction of scenarios for the fishery, as well as in the management, conservation actions, and sustainable use of the local fishing resources in the region.