João Vitor Campos-Silva, General Director of Instituto Juruá, was one of the 2019 Rolex Award laureates. The award will support a project to develop a basin-scale conservation model where arapaima will play the central role, aligning biodiversity conservation and the well-being of local dwellers.
“Arapaima can be understood as a fish of change in the Amazon. The community-based conservation management model, developed by experienced fishers and researchers at the Instituto Mamirauá 20 years ago, has become a great tool for reconciling biodiversity conservation and improvements to the quality of life for rural populations on a large scale. The idea of our project is to expand this initiative beyond the boundaries of Protected Areas. Conservation should be a way of life, able to improve the lives of people living in rural communities. With this project we will develop a model that integrates rural communities into the arapaima value-chain, ensuring fantastic results for conservation and human well-being” says João Vitor.
