Management of Wildlife in the Floodplain:

A Critical Look at Threats, Bottlenecks,

and the Future in Amazonia

Ronis Da Silveira

Abstract  The main bottlenecks for conservation and management of fauna in the
Brazilian Amazonia have been the lack of scientists and of adequate legislation.
The hunting of aquatic vertebrates such as turtles, crocodilians, and more recently,
the pink river dolphin in the floodplain forest represents the most important illegal
wildlife trade in the world. My objective in this chapter is to present a qualitative
analysis of the main trends in the use and management of wildlife in the várzea
floodplain forests of Amazonia, and the consequent evolution of related legislation.
Considering all the Brazilian ecosystems’ conservation policies, wildlife was the
component least discussed and for which legislation was not modified in the last
40 years. The proclamation of the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC;
Law 9.985) in 2000 became the most important development for the direct use of
wildlife in Amazonia, especially in the case of Extractive Reserves and Sustainable
Development Reserves. Over the last decade, thousands of projects have claimed
to identify themselves as examples of sustainable management in Amazonia. Until
better procedures are implemented, regional authorities and environmental agen-
cies should label as sustainable management only those planned human interven-
tions which include some intrinsic compensatory mechanisms for the exploited
animal populations, and which through these mechanisms guarantee the genetic
variability of the populations. However, we cannot assume that protection efforts
constitute effective sustainable management, unless the monitoring shows what
the population trends are, and mechanisms exist to alert conservationists in case of
unsustainable use. Over the next decades, public policies within Brazilian Amazonia
related to the sustainable management of wildlife should include the following:
a source-sink system, an adequate monitoring program, satisfactory community
involvement, commercial trade focused initially on the Brazilian market and on the
MERCOSUL region, supervision of the state government by the federal government

R. Da Silveira (*)
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Avenida André Araújo 2936,
Aleixo, CEP 69060-001, Manaus AM, Brazil
e-mail: ronis@inpa.gov.br

M. Pinedo-Vasquez et al. (eds.), The Amazon Várzea: The Decade Past 137
and the Decade Ahead, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-0146-5_10,
© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
138 R. Da Silveira

and by NGOs, and all of these components monitored by the academic community.
The management of crocodilians in the Brazilian várzea floodplain forests of
Amazonia is self-defeating and a looming threat to what could have been one of the
few and best empirical examples of sustainable wildlife use and management in the
Amazon basin.

Keywords  Brazilian Amazonia • Management of wildlife • Floodplain • Hunting

• Crocodilian

1 Introduction

The title of this article expresses more my enthusiasm than any real capacity to
evaluate the topics it raises regarding wildlife in the várzea floodplain forests of
Amazonia, including their diversity, their productivity, and the hunting pressure to
which their species are subject. It also concerns me that among the dozens of
­scientists and themes that make up this volume, I am the only author explicitly
tackling the question of conservation and management of fauna in the várzea.
Could this observation be an indication of how relatively little we have studied and
learned about fauna in these habitats over the last several decades?
For species conservation, all bottlenecks, whether technological, scientific,
genetic, legal, economic, or social, should be considered a threat, especially if they
concern commercially exploited populations. In Brazilian Amazonia, the main
bottlenecks for effective conservation and management of fauna have been the lack
of scientists and of adequate legislation (Magnusson and Mariano 1986; Magnusson
and Mourão 1997; Da Silveira 2006).
Throughout the várzea forests of Amazonia, limitations imposed by the flood
pulse (Junk 1997) and the lack of electricity generally make management of wild-
life nonviable if it is based on closed (farming) or semi-open (ranching) systems.
Consequently, exploitation of animals in these environments largely takes the form
of hunting. However, local people generally concentrate their hunting efforts in the
terra firme forests that are adjacent to the floodplain forests where they live; and
when compared to fishing or agriculture, hunting is much less important in the
subsistence of these human populations.
In the last several decades in Brazil, hunting in the Amazonia floodplain has
created the largest illegal trade of fresh-water turtles (Fachín-Terán et  al.2000;
Kemenes and Pantoja 2006), crocodilians (Da Silveira and Thorbjarnarson1999; Da
Silveira 2003), and pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) (Da Silveira and Viana
2003) in the world. During the same period, the number of scientific research proj-
ects evaluating the impact of hunting on game species in the várzea floodplain
forests has been relatively small. The only relevant studies to be carried out include
ones done with three ethnic groups in the Uaçá Indigenous Territory in the state of
Amapá (Mühlen 2005), and in the Sustainable Development Reserves of Mamirauá,
Management of Wildlife in the Floodplain 139

Amanã, and Piagaçu-Purus (Da Silveira and Thorbjarnarson 1999; Da Silveira

2003; Amaral 2005) in Amazonas state.
The objectives of this chapter are to describe the main trends of use and manage-
ment of wildlife in the várzea floodplain forests of Amazonia and the evolution of
relevant legislation on wildlife use in Brazil. Most of what is expressed in this
chapter I learned from a new generation of researchers who are very active in the
várzea, among them Adriana Terra, Augusto Kluczkovski Jr., Boris Marioni,
Eduardo von Mühlen, Emiliano Esterci Ramalho, Francivane Fernandez, João
Valsecchi do Amaral, Guto Ruffeil, Robinson Botero-Arias, and Márcio Sztutman.
However, the ideas presented here were based primarily on my own perceptions of
the past, present, and near future of subsistence and commercial use of fauna in the
Brazilian floodplain of Amazonia. The concepts explained here do not necessarily
apply to invertebrates, fish, or amphibians.

2 The Legal Bottleneck

Brazilian legislation on the use of wildlife is the same for the two major ecosystems
of Amazonia, the terra firme and the várzea floodplain forests. Ecologically this
can be justified, because of the complementarity of these two environments for the
conservation of biological diversity (Haugaasen and Peres 2005). Wildlife has been
the component of the ecosystems and biomes of Brazil least discussed and legis-
lated in the last four decades. Full protection of species and an “elitization” of
management became the national strategy for wildlife management.
After transiting through the National Congress for 12 years, the publication of
the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC; Law 9,985) in 2000 was the
most important advance in legislation regarding the use of wildlife in Amazonia
during recent decades. In this law a ban on amateur and professional hunting in
Extractive Reserves (RESEX) was clearly set up. At the same time, the lack of an
explicit prohibition on wildlife use in Sustainable Development Reserves (SDR)
gave margin for debate and interpretation. Even today, more than 10 years after the
publication of the law, legal interpretations of the SNUC are tenuous, questionable,
and require further discussion. It is important to highlight that even before the final
publication of the SNUC, the noninclusion of the expression “amateur and
­professional hunting … is prohibited” in the article of SNUC regarding SDR was
proposed by the great zoologist José Márcio Ayres.

3 The Risks of Rupturing the Bottlenecks

That Protect the Fauna

If we were able to observe wildlife issues in a temporal perspective that is longer

than our careers or life plans normally permit, maybe it would be possible for us to
find some positive aspects of the bottlenecks to the conservation of wildlife that are
140 R. Da Silveira

imposed by the system. One extreme case can be observed in Colombia, where
many local colleagues suggest, although reluctantly, that the difficulty of access to
natural resources in the portion of Amazonia under control by armed groups repre-
sents one of the most effective mechanisms to reduce human pressure on wildlife.
In Brazil, the ban on hunting imposed by the military dictatorship in 1967 was
crucial for the conservation of Amazonia’s biodiversity, allowing many species to
recover to reasonable numbers. This included some populations of aquatic mam-
mals, terrestrial carnivores, and reptiles that were considerably overexploited in
the past.
Since then, a new “philosophy” of sustainable management has been construc­
ted, based on a successful example carried out in the várzea floodplain forests of
Mamirauá SDR. This has stimulated state governments to create innumerable pro-
tected areas permitting “sustainable” use of wildlife, but with the main hidden
purpose of allowing extensive and uncontrolled exploitation of wildlife.
In this situation, pressure on wildlife will increase and new legal barriers will
need to be implemented to protect species populations. In the meantime, the
number of exploitation proposals for Amazonian wildlife is growing every year,
and control mechanisms for the harvest of wildlife have not been properly
discussed.

4 Economic Exploitation Disguised as Management

In the past 20 years, thousands of projects have emerged, been developed, and pro-
posed by governmental agencies, NGOs, local businessmen, and landowners. They
all try to involve traditional or indigenous populations so that they can call them-
selves “sustainable management.”
Until better regulatory procedures are available and applied, environmental
authorities and local stakeholders should allow the label of sustainable management
to be used only with projects that include intrinsic compensatory mechanisms for
the harvested populations, guaranteeing population numbers and genetic variability.
All other projects should be considered supplemental ways of using wildlife that
add pressure to the species populations. Without the implementation of efficient
monitoring programs, capable of effectively evaluating sustainability of harvest and
real population trends over time, we will not be able to distinguish between sustain-
able management and mismanagement.

5 One Terrible Example of Mismanagement

Around 1997, Mamirauá SDR ceased to be the area of greatest illegal harvest of
caiman meat in the world. This was in part due to the law enforcement activities of
the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA).
Management of Wildlife in the Floodplain 141

However, it is likely that the main factor was economic, as Colombian traders lost
interest in caiman dry-salted meat. At the same time, illegal hunting was intensified
along the lower Purus River, in the area of the Piagaçu-Purus Sustainable
Development Reserve, from where caiman meat is mainly exported to markets in
the State of Pará (Da Silveira 2003).
A few years later a massive trade of the pirate catfish (Calophysus macropterus,
Pimelodidae) was established in Central Amazonia, supplying markets in Colombia.
The pirate catfish is a scavenger species and until that time had basically no
­commercial value. The particularly damaging circumstances of this commercial
trade was that fishermen use the meat of the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger),
spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), and pink river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) as
bait (Da Silveira and Viana 2003).
The poaching and trade of pink river dolphin and caiman carcasses to use as bait
for the pirate catfish fishery is today common practice between Tefé and Tabatinga,
and along the lower Purus River in the state of Amazonas, although pirate catfish
fisheries in this region only started in 2004. In these areas, one adult pink river
dolphin is worth up to R$100 (~$50 USD), and it is increasingly common to
encounter live dolphins tied along the riverbanks awaiting the pirate catfish fisher-
men to collect them. In the Mamirauá SDR, a decrease in numbers of pink river
dolphins since 2000 is likely to have been caused by this uncontrolled harvest (Da
Silva, personal communication).
Despite denunciations sent to the IUCN/SSC (Da Silveira and Viana 2003), and
to the Brazilian and global environmental communities, nothing has been done by
the government to stop or control this activity, and the practice continues to expand
in the várzea floodplain forests of Central Amazonia. In the mid-Solimões River
region the number of caiman killed to be used as bait is at least as large as the
number slaughtered for the illegal caiman meat trade of past decades (Da Silveira
and Thorbjarnarson 1999).

6 Good Management for the Next Decade

For some time now I have been convinced that decentralizing the mission of pro-
tecting wildlife that was not in danger of extinction from the federal to the state
governments would be the best solution for conservation and management in
Amazonia (Magnusson 1993). However, the recent experience of caiman
­“management” clearly indicates that this may not be the case. The demands of the
political agendas of the Brazilian state governments can be even more harmful to
wildlife than the inertia of the federal government.
Over the next decade, sustainable wildlife management projects in Brazilian
Amazonia need to include at least the following characteristics: (a) a source-sink
system (Novaro et al. 2000), (b) an adequate monitoring program, (c) satisfactory
community involvement, (d) commercial trade initially focused on local and regional
Brazilian markets and on MERCOSUL, (e) supervision of the state governments by
142 R. Da Silveira

the federal government and by NGOs, and (f ) all of these components monitored
by the academic community, NGOs, and the stakeholders involved in the
Management Unit.

7 The Management Unit

Since 1967, one of the few effective contributions of the federal government to the
discussion on wildlife in Amazonia occurred in May 2006 during the First
Workshop on Policy for Amazon Wildlife, organized by IBAMA and the Ministry
of the Environment (IBAMA 2006). One of the major advances discussed during
the event was the definition of the concept of the Management Unit.
In general terms, a Management Unit should be as large as the area required by
the target species or group of species for its survival and subsistence. Species with
a habitat that falls within a single land or land-holding unit can be managed by
those legally responsible for that land unit. If the habitat necessary for a species or
group of species is found in more than one land unit, then representatives of each
unit will participate in any decisions made.

8 The Amazonian Caimans, a Case Study

To my dismay, I have become one of the biggest critics of the harvesting of caimans,
the so-called sustainable management that has been practiced in Amazonia since
2002. The reasons for my criticisms are many, and I will list here the ones I consider
the most important:
1. The activities that are planned and implemented strictly follow a governmental
agenda rather than the opinion or scientific results of the most experienced and
competent specialists on the target species, or the demands of organized civil
society
2. The great majority of technicians involved have neither the necessary knowl-
edge nor experience in wildlife management, and lack familiarity with the local
way of life, local perceptions, and of the Amazonian universe in general
3. The government agencies and the civil institutions responsible for caiman
­management have philosophical and practical divergences, or are in plain
­disagreement, about almost everything
4. Excessive lobbying and marketing have become common in official campaigns.
This scenario has created an incorrect popular belief among local communities
and other Amazonian countries that the harvesting and commercialization of
caiman is, or will become, legal and unrestrained in the Brazilian Amazonia
5. The elimination of any decision-making authority of the regional Superintendency
of IBAMA/AM in the state of Amazonas, with the concentration of power in
IBAMA/Brasília and the National Center for Conservation and Management of
Management of Wildlife in the Floodplain 143

Amphibians and Reptiles (RAN) in Goiânia/GO—both outside Amazonia—has

caused a pronounced deterioration of conservation and management of
Amazonian crocodilian species
6. The extrapolation of various conclusions about population parameters and
ecology of the targeted species from studies in the focal area of Mamirauá SDR
is unadvisable and risky, even for neighboring areas
7. The not explicitly declared intention to export skins of the black caiman
(M. niger), rather than to prioritize meat production, could unleash in the next
few decades an illegal traffic in skins (and meat) as has never been seen before
(Da Silveira and Thorbjarnarson 1999)
8. The commendable, but extreme, caution of the Ministry of Agriculture,
Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA) in certifying the quality of caiman meat
using rigorous sanitary standards never seen before in Amazonian context
makes harvest nonviable. Regulation regarding certification of caiman meat has
to be more flexible if it is to be realistic
9. The political pressure of local governments on their own technicians and state
institutions to certify “officially produced” caiman meat is a bottleneck for the
effective conservation of Amazonian caiman populations
10. The bogus monitoring of some populations of caiman carried out by the
­government agencies is frightful and violates the basic principles and good
practices of efficient wildlife management
For these and many others reasons, the management of crocodilians in the Brazilian
várzea floodplain forests of Amazonia can be labeled “shooting oneself in the foot;”
that is, it is self-defeating and a looming threat to what could have been one of the few
and best empirical examples of sustainable wildlife use and management in the
Amazon basin.
Finally, the future of wildlife conservation in the várzea is unpredictable, and will
depend on the social and biological strides that will be made in the coming decades.
The most critical aspect is how the inhabitants of Amazonia will react to new tech-
nologies. The key to achieving a balance in Amazonia is “to manage with care.”

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