The continental shelf of southern Brazil is known for its abundance of fishery resources. In the coastal region of Rio Grande do Sul, the exploitation of these resources since the late 1940s has driven the development of a fishing industry in the city of Rio Grande. This industry was based on catches from both Brazilian waters and those of Uruguay and Argentina, reaching its peak in the 1970s.

Stimulated by tax incentives in the early 1960s, both fishing and fish processing capacities were intensified, with fishing efforts concentrated on the southern Brazilian continental shelf. Over time, it became evident that the fishery resources were insufficient to supply the overbuilt industrial facilities in Rio Grande.

As the fishing activity in Rio Grande unfolded, the city’s geographical location in the extreme south of Brazil became a strategic disadvantage compared to the fishing hub of Itajaí/SC, due to its distance from the country’s major consumer markets. As a result, the fishing value chain in Rio Grande began to decline, while Itajaí/SC steadily established itself as the main fishing center of the Southeast and South regions of Brazil—already evident in the final decades of the 20th century.

The concentration of fishing effort in southern Brazil to supply both Rio Grande and Itajaí/SC, the increased fishing power of vessels through the adoption of new technologies, and the absence of effective fishery management by the federal government led many species’ stocks to overexploitation, and some even to collapse.

In the specialized literature, a collapse is characterized by a scenario in which increasing fishing intensity no longer results in higher catches, which instead fall to levels lower than those that could be achieved with lower fishing intensity.

Thus, the overexploitation of fishery resources has, over the years, led to declining catches and, consequently, a drop in income for thousands of small- and medium-scale fishers along the coast of Rio Grande do Sul. This decrease in income due to stock depletion has placed fishers—especially small-scale ones—in a situation of extreme social vulnerability. However, industrial fishers are also exposed to a fragile situation due to the weak structure of the fish production value chain in the state and the gradual depletion of raw material sources caused by overfishing.

The implementation of an adequate management strategy depends on several factors, including stakeholders' objectives, the biology and life-history characteristics of the target species, the available data, the operational characteristics of the fishery, the socioeconomic context, and the governance and institutional framework.

Given the current state of fisheries in Rio Grande do Sul, an effective management strategy must be accompanied by development plans for the value chain, aiming to add value to products and generate multiplier effects in revenue across the entire fishing sector.

This project involves the structuring of a management plan to foster sustainable fishing activity and the design of opportunities to strengthen the industrial fishing value chain in the municipality of Rio Grande. It is a scientifically based study, with a targeted methodology structured in phases for each segment of the value chain, detailed in the full document available at: https://www.furg.br/projetos-de-pesquisa#q:Abdallah/p:1.