GEO Brasil - UNEP

presented at least two possible
causes: 1) overfishing of the main
fishing resources, especially the
Brazilian sardine in the Southeast;
and 2) the data collection
methodology, or possible duplicated
data collection, which resulted in an
overestimate of the production As a
result, they continued, the total fish
production in Brazil would be unlikely
to exceed 850,000 tonnes and
maritime fish production would
remain under 650,000 tons Paiva
(1997) added that it was very difficult
to obtain reliable statistics about
Brazilian fishery due to the coexistence
of two production systems
(artisan and industrial), and also
because the first one operates on a
high number of species, with small
amounts captured and ample
dispersion of disembarking spots
Figure 2 - B razilian continental, maritime and total fishing production, from 1960to 1999
t (x1,000)
1200
1000
the state of the environment in Brazil
Until 1994, Brazilian total production
was heavily influenced by the
performance of maritime fishery
(Figure 2) However, continental
production has become more and
more important since then, a clear
result of the increment observed over
the last five years of the series This
increment, in turn, resulted from the
significant growth of production
associated to aquaculture in
continental waters, which rose from
400 tons, or about 05 percent of the
total production in 1994, to 114,100
tonnes, or about 189 percent in 1999
At the same time, extractive fishery
seems to have stagnated or even
decreased (Table 1)
Paiva (op cit) focused on Brazilian
estuarine/marine fishery from 1980 to
1994, and calculated an annual
average of 600,000 tonnes, 240,000
800
600
400
200
0
1960
1963
1966
1969
1972
1975
1978
1981
1984
1987
1990
1993
1996
CONT. MAR TOTAL
tonnes/year (40 percent) of which produced by artisan fishery and 360000
tonnes/year (60 percent) by industrial fishery
Industrial fishery is more important in the Southeast and South, which are the
richest in the country (Paiva, op cit) and received the most tax incentives
Artisan fishery is more representative in the North and Northeast of Brazil
It is important to point out that artisan fishery continues playing an important
1999
YEAR
143