Prevent bottom trawling in southern Brazil

Bottom trawling, a method of fishing in which nets are dragged across the ocean floor, leads to the death of an estimated 4.2 million tons per year of non-target species worldwide (1), decreases revenue by disrupting the growth of juvenile fishes (2, 3), threatens ocean ecosystems worldwide (4), and increases aqueous CO 2 emissions by disturbing the seafloor (5). The coastal shallow waters of the Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil, an ecological hotspot for megafauna and fish feeding, spawning, and nursing, have deteriorated due to extensive fishing. To protect and reconstruct their former fishery productivity, scientific evidence should be valued over the industry’s immediate interests, and bottom trawling should not be allowed in this ecosystem. Extreme overfishing (6, 7) and the chronic inefficiency of federal fisheries management pushed local fishers in Rio Grande do Sul to lead the push for the 2018 approval of the Sustainable Fisheries State Policy Act (Rio Grande do Sul State Law 15,223/2018), which banned all motor-powered bottom trawling up to 12 miles from the state’s 570 km of marine coast. Decades of scientific evidence indicated that the ban would have sustainable Edited by Jennifer Sills ecosystem benefits and ensure continued revenues for small-scale and industrial fisheries (6–8). For the same reasons, trawling bans have been established in other countries (9). However, the law was questioned in Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court in 2019 after the neighboring state Santa Catarina’s industrial fishing sector claimed economic losses. The dean minister maintained the law (10), but in December 2020, his successor suspended it (11). Efficient and effective fisheries management is essential to the food security of the more than one million people along the 8000-km Brazilian coastline for whom fishing is a way of life and primary source of income (12). The new minister’s decision led to uncertainty about the state’s right to legislate on this issue, which could be an enormous setback in ecological and fisheries restoration. We urge the Supreme Court to formally recognize rights of states in Brazil to legislate in their coastal waters. Only then will local and other coastal fisheries be able to choose a sustainable path forward. Luís Gustavo Cardoso*, Manuel Haimovici, Patrízia Raggi Abdallah, Eduardo Resende Secchi, Paul Gerhard Kinas Instituto de Oceanografia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil. Instituto de Economia, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil. Instituto de Matemática, Estatística e Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil. *Corresponding author. Email: cardosolg15@gmail.com REFERENCES AND NOTES