Putting to Work an Ecosystem-Based Approach in Large South American Rivers to Preserve Fish Populations and Small-Scale Fisheries

South American large rivers provide valuable ecosystem services as they play a critical role in supporting food security, nutrition, and provision of livelihoods, employment and poverty alleviation. However, management of South America river fisheries is challenging managers due to augment of fishing pressure, damming, water diversion, pollution, floodplains deterioration, agricultural and cattle development. Most of fisheries still exhibit poor management systems or remain managed under a conventional approach. Mismatch between fisheries size, capability of surveillance and enforcement, and absence of adequate management plans have favored also overfishing of target species in some areas. Unlike marine systems, application of an ecosystem-based fisheries management approach (EBFM) conceptual basis and guidelines for its implementation in fluvial fisheries remains still not well understood and poorly applied to preserve healthy fluvial systems ans their fisheries. Limitations for expanding an ecosystem perspective in inland waters are rooted in freshwater complexity that involve basin processes at different scales and an intricate network formed by social, economic and environmental relationships that govern fisheries trends and patterns This presentation discuss the application of an EBFM approach in large floodplains rivers of South America highlighting how this concept represent a suitable alternative for supporting fish conservation and fisheries sustainability.