Long-term coastal adaptation, food security and poverty alleviation in Latin America

Our interdisciplinary team is investigating the historical ecology of marine fisheries along the coast of Brazil over the last 5000 years, during major cultural and environmental changes in the region. We are uncovering the socio-ecological trajectories of small-scale fisheries, from the pre-Columbian era, through historical colonization and urbanization, and to the present day in eastern South America.

The traditional knowledge of small-scale fisheries plays a prominent role in current debates and policies concerning sustainable fisheries and biodiversity, yet these fisheries and their actors are historically invisible in most tropical and subtropical regions. A thorough recognition of their socio‐economic and ecological importance requires an understanding of the scale of human interaction with marine environments and resources that transcends modern assessments and most historical records.

In 2017 the United Nations established the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, taking place from 2021 to 2030. The decade has been created to meet the imminent need to expand our understanding of the changes taking place in our oceans, as well as the best ways to preserve and restore sustainable practices. Ocean science has made great progress over the last century, however a long-term perspective of the anthropogenic footprint on oceans is still largely missing.