We aimed to understand the relationship between freshwater prawns' fishermen and the environment in the Itapemirim River, southern region of Espirito Santo-Brazil, in order to identify the fishing characteristics, traditional knowledge about use of traps, the level of environmental perception and the knowledge about the species that inhabit the river. The results of this work can be supporting the creation of effective public measures for the conservation of fisheries resources, not only based on biological concepts but with the possibility of contribution from the fishing community.
We conducted semi-structured interviews with fishermen from two different regions across the Itapemirim River: the river head and the region that is near from the estuarine area. The required number of people involved in fishing activities was reached through the "Snowball" method. For that, 16 questions were elaborated, being 6 closed and 10 subjective ones contemplating the environmental characterization, use of fisheries resources and economical aspects of the fishing. The interviews were documented in audio and video form along with notes in the interview script. This work happened after our studies about the occurrence of freshwater prawns in the Itapemirim River, when we found six species of freshwater prawns: Macrobrachium jelskii , Macrobrachium carcinus , Macrobrachium acanthurus , Macrobrachium olfersii , Palaemon pandaliformis and Potimirim brasiliana.
We observed two different fishermen group. Both of the groups use traps and sieve to fishing. In the headland region, amateur fishermen fish freshwater prawns aiming to get live bait for recreational fishing. This group showed low environmental perception when compared with the community that lives near the estuarine area. This is due possibly to non-dependence on fishing for family maintenance. In the region near estuarine area, the community usually fish freshwater prawns to sell for human consumption. The animals sold represent a large part of family income. In the estuarine region, the relationship between man and fishing is greater, with greater experience and proximity to the environment, as well as the financial and food dependence on products from this environment. Due to this dependence, they present a broad knowledge about the biotic and abiotic components that make up this ecosystem, enabling them to identify flood and low river seasons, reproductive and migratory periods, ecological relationships, behavioral habits of aquatic organisms, as well as other aspects characteristic of the region. However, of six species of shrimp that occurs in the Itapemirim River, only 3 (M. acanthurus , M. carcinus e M. olfersii ) were recognized through photos by fishermen being these as species with higher economic values cited.