Artisanal fishing in the Amazon – Ancestral knowledge and practices and public policies

Abstract

This article examines Amazonian small-scale fishing through the narrative of José, a riverside dweller from the Beija-Flor River, weaving together sociology, law, and visual arts to understand how memory, aesthetics, and politics intertwine in the management of the Closed Season Insurance (Seguro-Defeso). Combining narrative inquiry, juridical-institutional analysis, and collaborative aesthetic experience, the study shows that fishers structure their work around an ecological calendar driven by floods and ebbs—seldom acknowledged by official regulations. Although essential, the Seguro-Defeso remains misaligned with this cosmoperception, exposing the gap between bureaucratic logic and local practice. Its limitations mirror a colonial legacy: legal categories that treat fish as mere resources, alongside environmental degradation from gold mining, monocultures, and hydroelectric dams that restrict fishing territories and silence displaced community voices. The article concludes that protecting fish is inseparable from protecting those who fish, and that responsive policies depend on effectively incorporating riverside knowledge into the design and implementation of public actions aimed at socio-environmental justice.