RESEX Soure Leading Innovative Management and Traditional Knowledge to Combat Threatened Biodiversity
The Soure Marine Extractive Reserve (RESEX Soure) became the first Brazilian Protected Area to enter the IUCN Green List. Located in Soure, on Marajó Island, Pará, the Reserve was created in 2001 on the demand of the local communities, as the area’s biodiversity was threatened with the increase of predatory fishing activities coming from fishers from other municipalities.
Extractive Reserves are catered for in IUCN’s Protected Area categories, represented in Category VI: Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources. In Brazil, these reserves were created to protect the territorial rights of traditional and local communities, ensuring their livelihoods and subsistence activities while preserving biodiversity. These communities practice sustainable extractivism and natural resource use that does not harm the environment.
RESEX Soure was the first marine extractive reserve in Pará, paving the way for 13 more reserves. More than 1200 families live in the Reserve and rely on sustainable fishing for their livelihood, with the main activity being the fishing and commercialisation of the mangrove crab, a key-species that is a bioindicator for the state of conservation of the mangroves.
The Reserve stands out for its co-management model, shared between ICMBio and ASSUREMAS, an association of users and beneficiaries of the area. It has a strong deliberative council, with 14 other associations of local communities, NGO’s, universities and government bodies, that alongside ICMBio have been implementing ground-breaking participatory management activities.
Located on the world's biggest fluvio-marine island in the Amazon basin estuary, the rich interactions between the Amazon forest and the sea create a unique mosaic of diversity of species that occur in the region. Soure is also rich in cultural heritage, with local gastronomy, artisanal fishing practices, rhythms and dances, ceramics, traditional medicine with oils and herbs and rites, festivities, storytelling and local legends that are practiced and preserved by local communities.