Saving trees with fish.

• Author: Hardman, Chris
• Position: !Ojo! - Labbish Chao and David Scott's Buy a Fish-Save a Tree program

ALONG THE BANKS of the Rio Negro in Barcelos, Brazil, are the settlements of the caboclos--river dwellers whose very existence is tied to the health of the waterway. Using just a dugout canoe, a paddle, and a clip net, they can make a living while safeguarding the rainforest. This symbiotic relationship is due to a one-inch-long, red and blue fish called the cardinal tetra, sought after by aquarium owners and pet stores around the world.

For more than 50 years, the caboclos have sustainably harvested the cardinal tetra and other river species for the global pet trade. "Rural people in this region found this to be something they could base a livelihood on with very little investment," says Scott Dowd, a researcher at the New England Aquarium who has studied the cardinal tetra for more than a decade. "This is an example of where people are able to live in the forest in harmony and perhaps even contribute to the long- term well-being of the forest." But now the hold the caboclos have on the cardinal tetra market is in danger because commercial fish farms in Florida and Southeast Asia have begun to successfully raise their own cardinal tetra and may flood the market with farm fish offered at a lower price.

Dowd warns that if the caboclos lose this industry, they will be forced to find other ways to make a living that are less sustainable, such as mining, ranching, and logging. "This is their economy. If they lose it, it's going to be bad for the economy, the people, and the environment," he says. The caboclos sell nearly 40 million cardinal tetra a year to fish lovers throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Combined with the other species harvested from the Rio Negro, the aquarium fishing industry employs nearly 1,000 families and provides the economic base for Barcelos' total population of 40,000. The caboclos know that although the cardinal tetra population is very...