A couple weeks ago I made a repeat trip up to the upper Rio Parana (which happens to have the best dorado fishing in Argentina imho) with Tom McMurray & Brandon White from Marine Ventures Foundation, a non-profit fisheries conservation foundation. They were interested in investigating Argentina’s native fish species, namely the golden dorado, in order to document what issues surround the fishery and what, if any, conservation measures are being taken. After talking w/ the locals and various stake holders in the area, we discovered that fisheries “management” or “conservation” or whatever you want to call it, is actually rather progressive in this part of Argentina. Despite the utter lack of scientific knowledge on dorado populations, officials largely realize the economic value dorado provide in the form of sport fishing and tourism, and want to preserve the resource. In fact, killing a dorado is now illegal in both the Corrientes province of Argentina and across the river in Paraguay. Nonetheless, the region is acutely impoverished and many locals break the rules and poach fish just to make ends meat. But at least the attitudes of the decision makers at the top of the pyramid seem to be oriented in the right direction. Perhaps our fisheries stakeholders could learn a thing or to from them.. But enough of fishing politics. We did manage to fit some actual fishing too!
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