Founded in response to a perilous oil spill in Rio’s Guanabara Bay, Ahomar fishing network has gone on to win international awards for its work, which has included peaceful occupation, the Environmental Fisheries Patrol volunteer programme and development of an app to monitor abuses in the bay. However, its members have faced threats, attacks, and even death for their activism. Carlos Tautz reports for the Environmental Defenders series.
Daize Menezes de Souza and Alexandre Anderson de Souza are a fishing couple from a coastal town north of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, on the border of Guanabara Bay.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Guanabara Bay is four times the size of Lisbon and accounts for the production of 500 tonnes of fish per month, 70 per cent of which is caught by around 10,000 small-scale, often traditional fishers like Alexandre and Daize, who both come from fishing families and still fish the way their parents and grandparents did. Their work feeds 11 million people in the seven municipalities around the bay.
This complex ecosystem is home to a variety of marine life, several square kilometres of mangroves, and other conservation areas. But these are at extreme threat due to relentless pollution and degradation, mainly of industrial origin.
Every day, 98 tonnes of waste are dumped on the banks of the bay and more than 1.3 billion litres of wastewater are discharged. ‘Unfortunately, that is not the only major problem,’ Daize tells LAB. The region has a long history of environmental crime, the result of the growing local fossil fuel industry.
Following a devastating oil spill in the year 2000, where over a million litres of oil leaked from a refinery belonging to Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras, Daize and Alexandre were forced into action.
They set up the Association of Men and Women of the Sea (Associação dos Homens e Mulheres do Mar – AHOMAR) in 2007 to campaign against the illegal practices of oil companies, to preserve the environment of Guanabara Bay, and to defend the rights of artisanal fishers living in the towns around it. While Alexandre is the formal president of Ahomar, Daize also heads an association of female and LGBTQ+ fishers.
Pollution in the Bay
Guanabara Bay is a complex marine ecosystem home to a diverse fauna that includes porpoises, sea turtles, crabs, birds, and fish of commercial importance. Its mangrove forests serve as nurseries for various species of fish and crustaceans as well as providing natural protection against sea level fluctuations – and thus the effects of climate change.
However, it is also a drain for polluted sewage and chemical waste. Domestic sewage from inhabitants around the bay is dumped into its waters. Large urban rubbish dumps have also been created – both legally and illegally – without proper environmental protection measures. The rubbish is not properly processed and toxic liquid waste accumulates and then flows into the bay through its many tributaries.
Guanabara Bay is also a base of operations for Rio de Janeiro’s fossil fuel industry. Here, ships sail in and out towards Santos Basin Pre-Salt, a gigantic oil and gas field a few hundred kilometres off the coast. Once those oil sector ships are scrapped, they are abandoned in the bay, without any precautions against industrial accidents or respect for the areas where artisanal fishers pass through and fish.
‘There are hundreds of abandoned ships here, in addition to the hundreds of large oil industry ships still in operation,’ Alexandre points out. ‘These have to be maintained, and sometimes repaired of course. Toxins are used in the process, but there is no one to check’. Rusty ships, which once supplied the offshore industry, lie half-submerged in dilapidated harbours known as “ship graveyards”. No one has taken responsibility to clear them.
‘There are hundreds of abandoned ships here, in addition to the hundreds of large oil industry ships still in operation,’ Alexandre points out. ‘These have to be maintained, and sometimes repaired of course. Toxins are used in the process, but there is no one to check’. Rusty ships, which once supplied the offshore industry, lie half-submerged in dilapidated harbours known as “ship graveyards”. No one has taken responsibility to clear them.
An oil spill ignites socio-environmental militancy
Besides all the toxic waste and shipwrecks, oil spills are also a huge source of pollution here. Guanabara Bay has seen three major oil spills, the most recent in the year 2000. ‘Over a million litres of oil leaked from a refinery belonging to Brazil’s state oil company Petrobras, in the town of Duque de Caxias,’ Alexandre explains.
The Bay was cleaned but remains of the oil polluted the waters to such an extent that consumption of fish was halted for months, affecting the work of artisanal fishers. ‘Since then, there have been far fewer fish living in the bay’ and it is now almost impossible to find sea bass or hake, once populous here.
Ahomar was founded in 2007 and the association went on to fight against contamination, property speculation around the bay, the dumping of industrial waste, and the lack of effective public policies for the fishing sector.
The network’s major milestone came in 2011, with the fishers’ peaceful occupation of natural gas and petrochemical pipelines – which were occupying the bay’s most pristine areas – for almost 15 days. Protests of this kind later ceased due to police repression and threats from mafia militias selling private security services to big oil companies.
Together, the fishers have established a volunteer programme, Patrulha Ambiental da Pesca (Environmental Fisheries Patrol) and developed an app to monitor abuses in the bay. This allows them to report pollution and oil spills to the relevant authorities, with exact geolocation data.
Today, the fishers’ struggle has changed shape. They no longer engage in direct confrontations, but instead organize themselves into networks of small local organizations, which put pressure on the authorities to improve public policies on, for example, the safety and environmental quality of the bay’s waters.
Together, the fishers have established a volunteer programme, Patrulha Ambiental da Pesca (Environmental Fisheries Patrol) and developed an app to monitor abuses in the bay, called De Olho na Guanabara, or Eye on Guanabara. This allows them to report pollution and oil spills to the relevant authorities, with exact geolocation data. A moderator then verifies the information and publishes it on a dedicated website, after which it is reported to authorities such as Brazil’s environmental agency Ibama or the navy, which patrols the bay.
Alexandre pulls out his phone and shows me a map similar to Google Maps. ‘All our fishers now have this app on their phones. It allows us to pinpoint on the map, while we’re sailing, if we see an oil spill or a vessel sailing where it is not allowed. That information is then stored and archived so we have evidence with which we can hold the companies accountable.’
Threats to their activism – and their lives
In 2012, Ahomar’s socio-environmental activism increased, but so did the confrontation with numerous Brazilian and multinational oil, natural gas, and petrochemical companies. The network became a target for those who profit from the lawlessness in the bay.
When I meet with Daize and Alexandre in the bay, distrustful looks from a few workers betray that visitors are not entirely welcome here. ‘Unfortunately, pollution is not the only problem here,’ Daize sighs. In Guanabara Bay, there is trafficking in weapons, drugs and even people. ‘But the Brazilian navy and environmental agencies don’t do anything about it,’ Alexandre laments.
Over the years, Ahomar has lost several members who have given up the fight in defence of local fishers due to threats made against them. At least four fishers have been murdered in circumstances related to the violence and pressure faced by fishing communities. After Alexandre, Daize, and a former Ahomar director blocked the passage of large ships in the bay with small fishing boats as a protest, they too began to receive death threats.
Daize and Alexandre have been persecuted by paralegal and mafia militias that sell private security to these economic groups and impede artisanal fishers’ right to work in the waters of the bay. ‘These are mainly former police officers,’ Daize explains. ‘They provide “security” for various polluting industries around the bay.’ These militias form a state within the state, do not shy away from violence, and do the dirty work for big companies, such as oil company Petrobras in this case.
About 15 years ago, Daize and Alexandre were forced to leave their home headlong. They were admitted to the national programme for the protection of human rights defenders, run by the Brazilian government and the state government of Rio de Janeiro. ‘But the threats just continued, that protection actually meant very little,’ Daize recalls. Eventually, their personal data was even leaked, something they hold the authorities responsible for. They decided to leave the protection programme.
‘We have been living for years in places where our safety was not guaranteed. In the end, we just went back to our old home’, Daize says.
However, at the end of 2024, Daize and Alexandre had their house surrounded by dozens of armed men, with the complicit omission of the Military Police who were supposed to protect the couple. They had to move away once again.
Hope has not been lost
Daize and Alexandre now live in an undisclosed location, under the guardianship of the National Programme for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, but they still defend the environment and fishers at political events held outside the militias’ areas of influence.
However hopeless the situation may seem, Guanabara Bay is showing signs of recovery and is not nearly as ‘dead’ as various government agencies and companies would have you believe. This is an argument being used to drive fishers out of the bay for good, Alexandre says. ‘The polluters keep insisting that the bay is dead, but that is not so true. In fact, there is more marine life in Guanabara Bay again. Fish and even aquatic mammals like dolphins are returning to the mangroves,’ Alexandre explains. ‘The situation is really bad, but not lost.’
Although authorities publish bathing indices daily, which almost always state that beaches in the bay are unsuitable for bathing, little is said about the positive sightings of various species of fish and even porpoises and dolphins, which denotes an increase and complexification of the marine food chain.
Nearly four thousand fishers have since joined Ahomar’s network, which has won a series of international awards with its volunteer project Patrulha Ambiental da Pesca (Environmental Fisheries Patrol) and the app.
Carlos Tautz is a journalist based in Rio de Janeiro covering South America.
