Artisanal fishermen training and cooperativism in Ceará State: lessons from the School-Boat Project

Abstract

This paper reports the activities of the School-Boat Project, developed with a target-group of thirty artisanal fishermen  from three different counties of Ceará State, Brazil, sponsored by the Marine Science Institute, Federal University of Ceará. It had  as objective to apply the cooperativism experience for technological enhancement by means of their training in artisanal fishing of  oceanic-zone fish with bottom longline. As a supporting methodology, interviews with fishermen were made on March and April of  2006, so as to ascertain their appraisal of the project, their socioeconomic profile, the teaching and social characters of the project, and  their positive outlook of the new technology. As its main outcome, the project enabled the known fishing techniques to be enhanced by  a new approach: fish were not given for free. What the fishermen actually acquired were permanent elements that will help them get a  better income and improve their social status. This research work has also shown that scientific knowledge can learned by low-grade  working people as long as adequate tuition means are applied to new experiences. The fishermen trained during the project became  teachers to their own fishing mates, meaning that its evident viability can be seen as an element of sustainable development of artisanal  fisheries in Ceará State.