The Ethnographic Institute

Mobilizing Support for Brazil’s Marine Extractive Reserve (MER) System

This study was prompted in part by alarming changes taking place along the Brazilian shore and in the country’s tropical shallow-water seas—changes not just of recent origin  attributable to sharp increases in population and commercial pressure. The French marine ecologist, Jacques Laborel, reported in 1969 that the Itaparica reefs in Salvador, Bahia were practically dead due to the extraction of lime-rich deposits (Cordell, 1972).  During this same period, analysis of shellmiddens revealed that even the most marginal “crab scavenger” mangrove fishing neighborhoods frequently had to be relocated as communities moved out in search of more productive foraging sites (Cordell, 1978). During that period, there was no such thing as a marine protected area in Brazil.  This study highlights the role of ‘Marine Extractive Reserves’ (MERs), a distinctive, ‘multi-use’ marine protected area framework set up for the sustainable use of marine resources by traditional communities with a long history and culture associated with them.

(note: further details of the Institute’s ongoing work to support and strengthen the MER system are discussed in a case study (Chapter 6) for The World Bank:   Scaling Up Marine Management:  The Role of Marine Protected Areas.)