【原】这是亚马逊河支流上的土著渔民梦想的一个日子

 

译文：

这是亚马逊河支流上的土著渔民梦想的一个日子。

这天正处在旱季的高峰期，河水水位急剧下降，一大群鲈鱼——这种鱼味道鲜美，价格不菲——径直游进了十几条小船纷纷抛下的渔网中。

“运气好一点的话，象这样一天能挣350美元，”正准备干活时，这位土著渔业队负责人劳拉·苏扎·艾尔默达兴奋地对我们说。“对我们来说，这可是一笔不小的财富，”他说，这相当于最低工资水平的上班族四个月的收入。

不过，不远处蛰伏着的是一艘大型商业渔船，这条“母船”，中段配有几个储藏用的大冷冻室，船尾拖着十几条小船。此时，甲板上的船员们正翘首等待支河里的漏网之鱼进入干河，以便用齿网分得一杯羹。

亚马逊河是世界上渔业资源最为丰富的地方。正由于此，这里目前正遭受一场滥捕危机。由于最受欢迎的几种鱼类锐减到令人担忧的地步，因此，土著渔民和商业渔民之间的关系日趋紧张——为了满足巴西国内外城市居民对鱼的不断增长的消费需求，商业渔民总是设法不断提高年产鱼量。

对此，亚马逊河沿岸国内外的渔民（外国的，象秘鲁）都纷纷起来组成各种团体，来规范捕鱼行为，并注重河湖里鱼儿的生态平衡。不过，努力所带来的日益显著的成效仅仅使得商业渔民和一些不太守纪律的土著渔民变本加厉。

“吨位在20~30吨之间的商业渔船，对于捕鱼，他们却有着与我们土著渔民不同的信条：我们都懂得把捕鱼和保护生态环境结合起来，”一位当地渔业协会的主席告诉我们说。“而他们却想用拖网掳尽一切，并想续继从我们的劳动中渔利，最终让我们一无所有。”

 

原文：

It was one of those days that the peasant fishermen on this tributary of the Amazon River dream about.

　　With water levels falling rapidly at the peak of the dry season, a giant school of bass, a tasty fish that fetches a good price at markets, was swimming right into the nets being cast from a dozen small canoes here.

　　“With a bit of luck, you can make $350 on a day like this,” Lauro Souza Almeida, a leader of the local fishermen’s cooperative, exulted as he moved into position. “That is a fortune for people like us,” he said, the equivalent of four months at the minimum wage earned by those fortunate enough to find work.

　　But hovering nearby was a large commercial fishing vessel, a “mother boat” equipped with large ice chests for storage and hauling more than a dozen smaller craft. The crew on board was just waiting for the remainder of the fish to move into the river’s main channel, where they intended to scoop up as many as they could with their efficient gill nets.

　　A symbol of abundance to the rest of the world, the Amazon is experiencing a crisis of overfishing. As stocks of the most popular species diminish to worrisome levels, tensions are growing between subsistence fishermen and their commercial rivals, who are eager to enrich their bottom line and satisfy the growing appetite for fish of city-dwellers in Brazil and abroad.

　　In response, peasants up and down the Amazon, here in Brazil and in neighboring countries like Peru, are forming cooperatives to control fish catches and restock their rivers and lakes. But that effort, increasingly successful, has only encouraged the commercial fishing operations, as well as some of the peasants’ less disciplined neighbors, to step up their depredations.

　　“The industrial fishing boats, the big 20- to 30-ton vessels, they have a different mentality than us artisanal fishermen, who have learned to take the protection of the environment into account,” said the president of the local fishermen’s union. “They want to sweep everything up with their dragnets and then move on, benefiting from our work and sacrifice and leaving us with nothing.”