Sustentabilidade das atividades pesqueiras do município de Piúma, litoral sul do Espírito Santo, Brasil

Abstract

This study was conducted from January, 2012 to February, 2015 to obtain the sustainability indexes of the fisheries’ activities in Piúma county (Espírito Santo State, Brazil), through the description of fisheries systems using RAPFISH model - a method of assessing the sustainability of fisheries with a multivariate ordination analysis of 54 attributes divided into five dimensions: social, ecological, economic, technological and management. A number of variables categorized in numerical scales from 1 to 5 were determined for all attributes and the weighted arithmetic mean was calculated for each system. There were 13 systems of fishing according to the type of the fleet gear, fishing gears, target resource, exploited ecosystem, income of fishermen and labor relations. The sustainability analysis showed that longline fisheries and thread are those with higher levels of sustainability. The other fisheries had, on average, lower levels. The data show the importance of governmental, institutional, business and civil society support to maintain and ensure the sustainability of the exploited environments, resources and fisheries. Integrated fishery studies are necessary to support the formulation of concrete proposals, but also for the co-management of fishing activities in the region.