Article Preview
TopIntroduction
The use of wildlife by traditional populations is an ancient practice and plays an important socioeconomic role (Nasi, Taber, & Van Vliet, 2011). Fishing and hunting are some of the main sources of livelihood and income in the traditional communities of Brazilian Amazon, as food sources, cultural expression, or trade of meat, leather and by-products (Freitas, Lopes, Campos‐Silva, Noble, Dyball, & Peres, 2020; Lopes, Valsecchi, Vieira, do Amaral, & Da Costa, 2012; Van Vliet, Mesa, Cruz-Antia, Aquino, Moreno, & Nasi, 2014).
These activities have social-environmental implications that need further research, because wildlife conservation should consider the social, cultural and economic context of the population using those resources (Berkes, 2004; Van Vliet et al., 2014).
Problems caused by overexploitation of several wild species have become evident as a result of large-scale illegal hunting to supply meat and leather to the domestic and international markets (Nasi et al., 2011; Ross, 1998). Thus, laws all around the world had to be created to protect those species (Franco, Botero-Arias, & Vital, 2019).
Until the beginning of the 1960s, there were no laws on hunting of wild animals in Brazil. It was only in 1967 that a change in habits of use of wild species started to be actively encouraged after Federal Law no. 5.197 was passed (Franco et al., 2019). It prohibited the use, persecution, hunting or capture of all wildlife, as well as their nests, shelters and natural breeding sites (Da Silveira & Thorbjarnarson, 1999; Mendonça, Marioni, Thorbjarnarson, Magnusson, & Da Silveira, 2016).
As of July 18, 2000, when Federal Law no. 9.985 was passed, the National System of Conservation Units (NSCU) started to promote environmental conservation while taking into account the processes of sustainable development, socio-economic appreciation of biological diversity and appreciation of traditional knowledge in Brazil (Queiroz & Peralta, 2010). The NSCU enable the use of natural resources, including wildlife management with commercial purposes, by traditional peoples in Conservation Units for Sustainable Use (Franco et al., 2019).
Community-based natural resource management is a widely recognized environmental conservation strategy whose aim is to encourage the participation of communities in sustainable productive systems, hence providing income for managers as they change their traditional patterns for exploiting and managing the use of resources (Freitas et al., 2020; Kellert, Mehta, Ebbin, & Lichtenfeld,, 2000). Generation of benefits through the sustainable use of resources has promoted local support and better levels of conservation and it is probably one of the most important strategies for conservation of the Amazon (Queiroz & Peralta, 2010).
Brazil, along with Colombia, has the world’s highest species richness of crocodilians, with a total of six species of caimans (family Alligatoridae) (Ross, 1998). All Brazilian species are exploited at some level, whether for subsistence or illegal trade of leather and meat (Mendonça et al., 2016; Ross, 1998). Large-scale commercial hunting, without rules on quantity, locations, minimum size or sex of hunted individuals, can quickly lead to population depletion, especially if combined with loss of habitat (Da Silveira & Thorbjarnason, 1999; Ross, 1998; Thorbjarnarson, 1999).