Representatives of the region’s three fishing colonies and of the Port Captainship in São João da Barra received first hand this week the initial results of the Port of Açu Fishing Monitor Project, launched in April. The enterprise developed the project voluntarily, with the support of consulting firm Braço Social Consultoria, to collect data on the productivity, number and flow of fishing boats, and to deepen knowledge about this industry’s dynamics. The initiative will run for two years and has a team of 12 people, including coordinators, technical staff and local monitors. After mobilizing and collecting data for four months, the team carried out the first of six planned presentations for fishing leaderships at the Port Complex Visitors Center.
“Nothing is more pertinent than presenting the first results of the project to the fishing colonies, which now will be able to better understand the context in which they operate. With the data, the fishing community will have a better idea of the volume fished by each municipality, of how the activity is broadly developed, and its importance for the economy of the Northern part of Rio de Janeiro state. The project also increases alignment between actions taken by the port, government authorities and fishermen,” said Caio Cunha, Social Responsibility manager at the Port of Açu.
All the data collected so far have been passed on to the fishing leaderships, who will receive printed material on the information presented in the next few days.
“I want to congratulate the Port of Açu for the initiative and also the fishermen who have committed themselves to the project, providing data voluntarily. Our mission is to motivate them to contribute with monitoring and this initial assessment already brought positive results. Several studies were done before with our fishing communities and this is the first time when results are actually presented back to us. On behalf of everyone, I want to thank you immensely for the work done,” said Diviane Chagas, Chairman of the fishermen’s colony of São Francisco de Itabapoana.
Data generated by the Fishing Monitor Project will be shared with authorities, fishing institutions and communities through scheduled visits and printed material.
