Fishers are experts on recognizing fish species in diverse rivers in the Brazilian Amazon
Ethnobiology is the branch of science devoted to investigate the detailed knowledge that Indigenous and local people (IPLC) have about nature and organisms, such as animals and plants.
This knowledge is usually referred to as Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) and is recognized as an independent and complementary knowledge source when compared with science.
Ethnobiology also addresses how IPLC recognize, name, and classify organisms, including the common or popular names that fishers use to identify fish.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
In this study we investigated the fishers’ knowledge regarding how they recognize, assign names, and identify habitats of fish species in two tropical rivers in the Brazilian Amazon, where small-scale fisheries are very important and we can find the highest diversity of freshwater fish in the world.
We showed photographs of 115 fish species in the Negro River and of 119 fish species in the Tapajos River, during interviews with eight fishers (sometimes a pair of fishers) in eight communities in each river (16 fishers in 16 communities in total).
We selected more experienced fishers to be interviewed. During the interviews and for each fish species, we asked them if: (a) they recognize the fish, (b) they can provide a name for the fish, (c) their perception of fish abundance in three categories (few, moderate, many), and (d) their perception of the relevance of the fish to the fisheries, also in three categories (rarely caught, moderate, often caught).
Based on the fishers’ responses we could calculate a knowledge index expressing the extent to which each fish species was known to the interviewed fishers and this index allowed some quantitative analyses comparing this knowledge with other variables, such as fishers’ perceptions on fish abundance, relevance to fisheries and size (measured through previous fish sampling in the studied rivers).
We recorded a total of 231 common names for 115 fish species in the Negro River and 290 common names for 119 species in the Tapajos River. Taking the information from all interviewed fishers in each river, all fish species were recognized by at least one interviewed fisher in the Tapajos River, whereas in the Negro River all but one species were recognized by at least one fisher.
The interviewed fishers tended to better recognize those fish species that are more abundant, larger, and more relevant to fisheries in the Negro River, but in the Tapajos River only larger fish were better recognized.
These results greatly expand the scope of fishers’ knowledge on fish diversity, as fishers can recognize and give names not only for the subset of species commonly targeted in fisheries, but also for smaller, non-exploited, and even rare fish species.
Our study reinforces the value of fishers’ knowledge to investigate the use, occurrence, distribution and cultural relevance of fish species in high diversity aquatic ecosystems. This kind of research on how fishers recognize fish can help improve fisheries monitoring and collaborations between fishers and researchers in Brazil and elsewhere.
Read the paper — Which fish is this? Fishers know more than 100 fish species in megadiverse tropical rivers by Renato A. M. Silvano, Paula E. R. Pereyra, Alpina Begossi, and Gustavo Hallwass
