7 Discussion and Conclusions

Brazil has witnessed a period of huge development of its aquaculture, especially in the last ten years. The resolution of federal concessions to aquaculture has opened new possibilities of fishing production in our country. There are more than 5.5 million of hectares of water, only in reservoirs under federal domain. Thus, it was imperative to work in elaborating public politics which could give us the planning of this development process.

Actually, our country has a legal framework that still is bureaucratic, but that will allow the concession of usage rights to Federal Union waters to aquaculture. In this framework, we can highlight the Presidential Decree 4895/2003, the Interministry Instruction no 06/2004 and the CONAMA Resolution no 413/2009. This framework also allowed the first Federal concessions to aquaculture in Brazil and have democratized the access to Federal Union Waters, because there is a possibility to give nonpaid concessions to that population in social vulnerability who lives near the reservoirs, rivers and in the coastal areas and at the same time give the concessions to big companies, but through a paid process. We also have two different ways to give the federal concessions:

1. Aquiculture Areas: Through an individual or a company who have the interest in some areas and ask Brazilian Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture to give them the concessions;
2. Aquiculture Parks (both marine and freshwater): The Brazilian Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture itself offers areas inside these parks to the producers.
In order to carry out the demarcation of Aquaculture Parks, complex studies are necessaries which include not only technical and environmental factors, but also social and economic ones. After the studies, aquaculture parks are demarked and the concessions process is realized, with a big and important participation of local stakeholders.
Brazil already has freshwater aquaculture parks in more than 25 (twenty five) reservoirs, and marine
aquaculture parks in 4 (four) different states, with a capacity of almost 1.5 million tonnes/year with freshwater fish; 87,000 tonnes/year of moluscs; 197,000 tonnes/year of marine fish and 85,000 tonnes/year of algae in marine water.
Otherwise, the public policies for aquaculture parks are too recent. It wasn’t until 2009 that first aquaculture parks got built and are in different stages of development:
• Aquaculture Parks with studies in development or to be started;
• Aquaculture Parks in demarcation;
• Aquaculture Parks in process of concession;
• Aquaculture Parks in production.
So, Brazil already has some conclusions to be discussed about these different experiences:
1. The necessary studies to demarcate the parks are too complex, expensive and slow;
2. The demarcation of parks remains a huge and difficult work for zoning, because we have different uses and users to water;
3. The process of concessions, although resolved and which give the legal security to the producers, are still slow and bureaucratic;
4. The aquaculture parks in production, remind a management, monitoring, controlling and supervision; that hasn’t been possible to carry out (for different reasons).
• Since october 2015, the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture was joined to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA); and so, where we see MFA, we must understand MAPA.
Finally, the exchange of international experiences among countries can be crucially important in this process of development to planning aquaculture parks in Brazil and in many other countries. And actions like this, with the support of FAO and World Bank, must be incentivized.