Before, fishing in Guanabara Bay, in the region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was ” marvellous “, remembers Francinaldo Alves da Silva. Today, the bay is almost no longer passable due to the tons of waste piling up and which has chased away the fish.
Fishermen are now in difficulty: to find the fish, you have to travel far and spend large sums on fuel. But the operation is no longer profitable, regret these professionals. A regret that adds to the sadness of seeing their bay turn into “dump”, as Aylton Rodrigues Martins says.
To overcome the financial difficulties but also to clean up the sea, the environmental organization BVRio has launched an innovative project, which involves twenty-five families of fishermen. Instead of loading their boats with fish, these fishermen today fill them with rubbish accumulated in the water. The objective for the twelve months of BVRio is to relieve the sea of some 100 tonnes of waste over a period of twelve months.