Development of reservoir fisheries management in Brazil based on imported paradigms

A paradigm is characterized as a network of conceptual, instrumental, and methodological commitments that guides the direction and methodology of scientific research. Thus, a paradigm defines what should be studied, what questions should be asked, what tools should be used, and what rules should be followed in interpreting results. The aim of this paper is to analyze how fisheries management emerged and developed in Brazil, considering that science's progress as a series of paradigms. Management actions related to reservoir fishery are not frequent in Brazil and, when applied, they did not generate good results, because they usually were based on poor technical and scientific information or in paradigms developed in the temperate region (North America). Fish passages (ladders) were the first attempt to minimize the impacts of damming, followed by regulation of fishery and stocking programs. However, it seems that the paradigm that led the researches (imported from the United States) was not appropriated for reservoir management in most Brazilian reservoirs. We agree that some other reasons contributed in some extension to the failure of management actions: i) inadequacy and insufficient data availability; ii) inappropriate approach used to perform management; iii) absence of monitoring studies; iv) policy inadequacies; and v) deficiencies in the integration among the hydroelectric companies. Recently, hydroelectric companies started to develop research in basic limnology and fish, in order to improve data quality to better support reservoir fishery management actions. We suggest that this situation is happening or maybe happened in other countries in South America and other parts of the world.