Paraná Movement of Traditional Fishing Communities (MOPEAR)

Context

With the implementation of Superagui National Park in 1989 and its subsequent expansion, hundreds of families were expelled from their territories, traditionally occupied for centuries, and transferred to the buffer zones, or coastal cities like Guaratuba, Paranaguá, Matinhos, Pontal do Paraná and Guaraqueçaba.

These families, who had a way of life intimately connected to the collection of forest and sea products, live, nowadays, with a series of conflicts with environmental protection entities and agencies, as they are severely punished (with fines and imprisonment), by these environmental agents, each time they attempt to use the resources available in their territories.

Project

The project goal is to provide the artisanal fishermen with training so they can become operators of collective and ethnic rights, capable of forwarding their own demands in defense of their traditional way of life and recovery of the territories lost with the implementation of Superagui National Park.

The classes will be conducted by the Legal Aid Office of the Network Peoples’ Puxirão and Traditional Communities, which is composed of two attorneys, experts in the field, with support from the NGO Land of Rights. The materials produced in the courses will be turned into a booklet, which will be prepared in partnership with the Team of Educators Institute.

As well as the training activities, the movement intends to take the demands for conflict resolution to the State.