Project Piaba-Center of Ornamental Fish Studies and Conservation

*Piaba is a regional generic name for ornamental fishes.
"Buy a fish, Save a tree!"

More than 350 million ornamental fishes are sold each year in the world market. The international sales of ornamental fish is worth more than $600 million annually. This trade has linked the subsistence of many Amazonian to the leisure of hobbyists throughout the world. Many ornamental fishes are captured in the flooded forests, streams and lakes of the middle Rio Negro basin, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Nearly 20 million fishes are exported from the region annually. The ornamental fish commerce provides the principle economic activity for the municipality Barcelos, Amazonas (pop. 11,000; area 122,490 km2). 

Project Piaba (ornamental fish) is a community based, interdisciplinary project which aims to understand the ecological and sociocultural systems of the middle Rio Negro basin, Amazonas, Brazil, in order to conserve and maintain the live ornamental fishery and other renewable resources at commercially feasible, and ecologically sustainable levels.

Since 1989 the Project Piaba team has been conducting scientific research along the Rio Negro basin. In January 1994 the Project inaugurated the Dr. H.R. Axelrod Laboratory of Ornamental Fish in the municipality of Barcelos to exhibit regional fishes and conduct outreach work in the local community. From there, the project has sponsored essay and drawing contests, public lectures, and has registered ornamental fishers with the Brazilian environmental protection agency (IBAMA). In January of 1996 the project moved to the new Center of Ornamental Fish Studies and Conservation located in the former hospital of the Catholic Parish, Nossa Senhora da ConseiAo. In addition to a fish exhibit, the new Center will house an environmental education facility, offices and laboratories.

For the past ten years (1989-1999), Project Piaba has been researching solidly to promote the sustainable harvest of aquatic resources that will ensure the survival of both the Amazonian rainforests and its human inhabitants. Significant progress has been made during this time, but much more baseline data are required before firm resource management strategies can be formulated. The next phase of Project Piaba (2000-2003) aims to generate data relating to a wide range of issues, from population of species diversity, to the function and structure of the ecosystem, and to develop measures that will help improve the livelihood of the riverine people. The ultimate goal is to promote a viable fishery at commercially and ecologically sustainable, and to help reduce environmentally destructive land use and rural-to-urban migration in the Rio Negro basin.