43,000+ global companies doing business in the region 102,000+ key contacts related to companies and projects news and interviews about your industry in English Photo: The expedition team heads up the Bariri River in a remote area of the Brazilian rainforest Tim Miller-Morgan is the university’s associate attending veterinarian for aquatics providing support and animal caretaking expertise for researchers studying fish and other aquatic species throughout OSU He’s also an assistant professor in the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine He travels to the Amazon every year to work with Project Piaba a nonprofit devoted to improving the sustainability and handling practices of the aquarium fish trade We start in Manaus in the state of Amazonas but we go 400-500 miles upriver on the Rio Negro Portuguese; there are Indigenous languages too but pretty much everyone we work with speaks Portuguese The overall project is to support the aquarium fishery and show that collecting fish from the Rio Negro to sell in the pet trade is a sustainable fishery and to show how that sustainable fishery is a way to protect the river and associated rainforest These communities understand that because their fish come out of these little tributaries if logging or mining operations go in there that’s going to negatively impact the fishing grounds The most famous fish from this area is the cardinal tetra but there are over 700 species that have the potential to be harvested for the freshwater fish trade These fish spawn in the highwater in the jungle and then when the water level starts to go down they get concentrated in pools and areas of the river where they can’t move the fish that are being harvested are fish that might otherwise die as the water level keeps dropping and the fisher communities there have not seen drops in the overall population I’ve worked on examining the chain of custody and how the fish are handled from the time they’re collected in the jungle to the time they arrive at the export facility in Manaus to find practices that could be changed to improve the overall health I started a kind of “train the trainer” project working with people in Brazil that functioned almost like OSU Extension agents who we trained to work with the fishers and the transit stations to improve overall animal care Students processing fish samples on board the Iracema the vessel carrying the research team up the Rio Negro There’s an American Project Piaba that’s closely associated with the Brazilian Proyecto Piaba There are four people from the project down there that I’ve worked with closely since my first trip in 2013 What’s the biggest challenge of working there so getting used to the climate is a challenge I think the biggest challenge is how nothing happens fast That’s not unique to Brazil; I’ve worked in a lot of other countries It just takes a long time to get things done There’s a fish called tambaqui or black pacu that I’ve had prepared a number of ways What’s the coolest thing a local has shown you the Bariri – the most beautiful spot I’ve ever been in Brazil It took us 14 hours from Barcelos by boat to get to the mouth of the river and then another two hours up to get to where these fishers fish These two guys have a little cabin where they’ve been fishing for 40 years What’s a useful phrase you’ve learned in the local language it’s always “thank you” – “obrigado” in Brazil That’s a word you’ve got to know whatever country you’re in What’s something from your experience that you take back to Oregon with you Knowing that the concerns of fishers in Brazil are very similar to the concerns of fishers in Oregon; it’s just that they have different equipment but it really hit home when we went up this little river just how remote it is but that really hit me – we had traveled 14 hours and not really seen anything in terms of civilization What piece of advice would you give others who might travel there I never want to offend people; I want to learn [email protected] Por um futuro em que as pessoas vivam em harmonia com a natureza Photos and graphics © WWF or used with permission. Text available under a Creative Commons licence You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience Jump to comments Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Interested in advertising? Advertise with us Partner with us now