Banca de DEFESA: Thaís Evangelista Coutinho

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : Thaís Evangelista Coutinho
DATE: 22/09/2023
TIME: 09:30
LOCAL: Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável
TITLE:

Fisheries institutions in Brazil: trajectories, changes and interest groups between 1962 and 2022.

KEY WORDS:

Industrial fishery, organized industrial fisheries interest groups, fishery insustentability,
institutions, public policies.

PAGES: 290
BIG AREA: Outra
AREA: Ciências Ambientais
SUMMARY:

Marine and inland fisheries and aquaculture have a crucial role in the food security, culture, and livelihoods of millions of people who depend on fisheries for income and essential nutrition. In Brazil, although fishing occupies an insignificant part of the national GDP, it has social, economic, and cultural importance, mainly for artisanal fishermen and vulnerable populations. Brazil has a history of negligence in fisheries management, represented by institutional political instability, the poor implementation of public policies, and the lack of official data on the state of fish stocks. Assuming that the current scenario of national fishing is the result of decades of flawed public policies, we propose to conduct a historical analysis to understand how interest groups linked to industrial fishing and the instability of formal fishing institutions are related to the current scenario of the Brazilian fishing sector, in which the environmental pillar of sustainability is not present. In this research, I split it into two parts. In the first phase, I conducted a historical investigation on how organized industrial fisheries interest groups became more active and influential and the strategies they used to influence fisheries policies. In the second part, I propose two potential causes that could explain the outcome: (C₁) organized industrial fisheries interest groups and (C₂) institutional instability. The C₁ was based on the theory of interest groups and empirical evidence that public policies established for industrial fishing in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s promoted the strengthening and organization of interest groups that began to act to influence public policies in favor of industrial fishing. The C₂ proposes that the instability of government fisheries institutions, observed since the second half of the 1990s, interfered in the implementation of fisheries public policies. The research has a time frame between 1962 and 2022, which begins with the creation of a federal autarchy that was exclusively responsible for fisheries policies for more than two decades and ends with the last year of the far-right government elected in 2018. The concepts and theoretical models that guided the analysis in this research come from the tradition of Historical Institutionalism. I applied historical research methodology in the first phase, and in the second, I used congruence methodology as a case study investigation model that enabled us to make inferences about causal relationships. The results show evidence that the ideas that existed about the potential for fisheries production and socioeconomic benefits in Brazil were the motivators for the implementation of fisheries policies that provided incentives for the action of industrial fisheries interest groups and their role in influencing the development of policies that serve their interests. These groups acted against policies aimed at restricting the fishing of overexploited fish stocks, which began in the early 1990s. Evidence shows that the institutional instability observed since the mid-1990s is possibly related to the actions of these interest groups to
reduce policies focused on the conservation and recovery of overfished stocks. The far-right government elected in 2018 withdrew the federal environmental agencies from fishing management and appointed a representative of industrial fishing as the head of the new department responsible for the fisheries sector. Understanding how these causes have contributed to the construction of the current scenario of Brazilian national fisheries can help plan a path for sustainable fisheries in the medium and long term.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Externo à Instituição - GILBERTO SALES - ICMBio
Interno - 1304307 - FABIANO TONI
Presidente - 1385659 - MAURO GUILHERME MAIDANA CAPPELLARO