Nicolás Rovegno Arrese
This project focuses on artisanal fisheries in northern Peru, specifically artisanal fishers and the ecological knowledge they have obtained throughout their career. Under the context of limited information for fisheries management this project aims at evaluating alternatives to generate information for management decisions. In that regard, we will test a methodology to identify if fisher’s ecological knowledge can be used as information for research and management.
Final slide of oral presentation during EBUS Lima 2022 thanking fishers’ support.
Fisheries management decisions need to be based on the best available information, which in artisanal fisheries is usually limited. Fishing communities as resource users acquire traditional ecological knowledge through their experience and day to day activity. This knowledge is mostly not considered in fisheries management and decision making, even though in data limited fisheries it could be the only source of information. We propose to test a methodological framework to evaluate if traditional ecological knowledge from fishers could be used generate information that is useful for fisheries management.
Fieldwork will be conducted in 6 fishing communities in the north of Peru to gather traditional ecological knowledge through interviews with fishers. We expect to identify key elements of information that can have enough robustness to be considered adequate. If so, this approach could help the wide range of artisanal fisheries with data deficiencies to improve their condition, and in the long run become a cost-effective and reliable technique to collect information for research, management and conservation in fisheries, with the potential of empowering local communities and involving them as part of fisheries research.