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Abstract:
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"Professional inland fisheries are an important economic activity in the region of Itaipu reservoir (135000 ha of inundated area, 12600 MW of nominal generation power), located on the Paraná River at the Brazil/Paraguay border (Paraná River is 4695 km long; Paraná/La Plata basin has a drainage area of 2800000 km2). The dam was closed in 1982, and before this landing data were scarce. In 1985 it an agreement was set between the UEM (Universidade Estadual de Maringá) and ITAIPUBINACIONAL (the Brazilian/ Paraguayan Agency that operates the dam) to collect landing data (FUEM 2002). In 1998, 619 professional fishermen landed 1192t of fish, of 10 commercial species, captured by nets and hooks (Petrere et al. 2002).
"Due to legal exigencies, after the dam closure, Itaipu was obligated to the royalties' payment to the municipalities in the region of the reservoir. In practice, between 1991 and 2001, it was observed a strong negative relation between the amount of royalties transferred to the municipalities and the fishing effort (of professional fisheries). Hypothetically, a fall in the fishing effort can occurred due to the increase of employment level of the population of these municipalities in other sectors of economy affected by the royalties (for example: agriculture and commerce).
"In this context, the aim of this paper is to propose a preliminary bio-mathematical model to subsidize the formulation of guidelines, based on the statements of precautionary management, as the predominant orientation in the juridical literature. Specifically, it is intended to elaborate a model via the software Vensim PLE to describe and predicting small-scale fisheries consequences upon the reservoir fish stock, and to test the relation between the decrease of fishing effort and Itaipu royalties' payment to the municipalities in the region of the reservoir via a regression model."
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