Instituto Juruá was one of the three winners of the first ATBC Short Video Contest on Science Communication: Success Stories in Tropical Biology and Conservation. The initiative was organized by Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), Mongabay, BAND Foundation, within the Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit.
In a short video Joao Campos-Silva, the general director of Instituto Juruá, and the cartoonist Rodrigo Ayres de Araujo known as “Barão do Pirapora” used an animated cartoon to present an optimistic story of the community-based management of the giant arapaima, locally called Pirarucu.
In this accessible video, the authors tell us about the arapaima management model based on lake protection and stock counts, which is run by residents of local communities in Amazonia. The video shows the ecological benefits from this model, not only for arapaima populations, but also for many other aquatic species such as freshwater turtles, alligators, and river dolphins. In addition, the video presents the social and economic benefits which are helping to improve local quality of life. The community-based management of arapaima is a clear bright spot that can elucidate how to align biodiversity conservation and human needs in tropical countries.
