Community fisheries and co-management on the Lower Amazon floodplain of Brazil

In response to the growth of Amazon commercial fisheries, a loose regional network of communitymanaged lakes has proliferated throughout the Amazon floodplain system. This approach has been widely perceived as a promising alternative for the sustainable management of floodplain fisheries. Over the last decade, communities, NGOs, grassroots organizations, and IBAMA – the Brazilian environmental agency, have worked together to develop a co-management system for floodplain fisheries based on the legal recognition of community fishing agreements. This paper examines the experience of the Santarém region of the Lower Amazon, the major regional experiment in fisheries co-management. Here, while considerable progress has been made in setting up a functional co-management system, it suffers from serious problems that undermine its effectiveness and threaten its long-term sustainability. Unless communities are permitted to restrict access and charge user fees, it is unlikely that the co-management system will survive once funding for project implementation terminates. There are, however, legal precedents for making the necessary design changes, thereby increasing prospects for the long-term institutional sustainability of the system.