Evidence of shifting baseline and Fisher judgment on lane snapper (Lutjanus synagris) management in a Brazilian marine protected area

The integration of knowledge from fishers and conventional scientific data is promising as a subsidy for the establishment of proper management procedures for fishing resources. In this context, the potential use of local ecological fisher knowledge from the Marine Extractive Reserve of Corumbau (MERC) in northeastern Brazil was evaluated regarding the shifting baseline of the lane snapper Lutjanus synagris. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 222 fishers who identified L. synagris as the main fish resource used in MERC. The relationship between the maximum L. synagris weight caught on the best fishing day among fishers of different age categories was not significant (p = 0.306). However, older fishers significantly (p