Cooperative Fishing with Dolphins Recognized as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Brazil

The designation recognizes artisanal fishers who cooperate with dolphins as holders of a unique and historically significant body of traditional knowledge, ensuring that this practice will be safeguarded. The protected heritage extends beyond the fishing technique itself to encompass the cooperative interaction between humans and wild dolphins—a centuries-old artisanal fishing system and traditional ecological knowledge that intertwine culture and nature along Brazil's southern coast.

Cooperative fishing with dolphins occurs in four estuarine systems between the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. The Tramandaí River mouth (Rio Grande do Sul) and the Laguna lagoon system (Santa Catarina) are the sites where the practice is most frequent, while interactions occur more sporadically in the estuaries of the Mampituba and Araranguá rivers.

The recognition process took nearly a decade to complete. It began in 2017, when the Southern Regional Council of Fishers (CPP-Sul) requested that IPHAN recognize the artisanal cooperative fishing tradition in Laguna. In 2020, the Imbé Community Association – Braço Morto (ACIBM), with technical support from the Botos da Barra Project at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Ceclimar/CLN), submitted a similar proposal for the cooperative fishing tradition in the Tramandaí River. These initiatives formed the basis of the technical assessment conducted by IPHAN, including a comprehensive dossier coordinated by the Collective for Studies on Environments, Perceptions and Practices (Canoa), affiliated with the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and the Brazil Plural National Institute of Science and Technology (INCT Brasil Plural).

According to IPHAN's Rio Grande do Sul office, one of the key factors supporting the designation was the historical continuity of the practice as a cultural reference for Brazil's southern coast, together with a clear demand from society for both its recognition and protection. The institute also emphasized that, although the registered area is centered on the Tramandaí River mouth, safeguarding this cultural heritage depends directly on maintaining the surrounding natural environment, particularly water quality, which is essential for both the dolphins and the mullet (Mugil liza), the key fish species involved in this unique fishing interaction.

The safeguarding plan establishes guidelines for the next ten years, including measures related to environmental sanitation and ecosystem conservation. From now on, environmental impact assessments for projects in the region will be required to consider their potential effects on the practice of cooperative fishing with dolphins.