Year-end report 2019 of the "Mata Atlántica" project

Since Brazil's new president, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, took office on 1 January 2019, environmental protection is no longer seen as important for the Brazilian government. Hard times are dawning for environmental and climate protection in Brazil. The announcements of the new government indicate that environmental issues will in future be subordinated to the interests of the economy, especially the powerful agricultural and mining sectors. Accordingly, policies are to be introduced that will make environmental legislation more flexible, weaken environmental and indigenous authorities and increase tolerance for deforestation. Therefore, it is even more important that we continue with our projects here and go more public. Networking with other similar projects should be sought in order to achieve more together!

The project is growing, new project members have joined us in 2019, both at home and abroad. We were able to build up a good stock of the highly endangered species, Scleromystax prionotos. Some of this went to new project members. But even so, the members have about 200 offspring, some of which can be given away again. After an appeal on the ÖVVÖ website and on Facebook, we were able to win two new project members (Austria, Hungary) for our cause at the end of 2019. A second species that has become well established in the project is Scleromystax barbatus. Here some adults from private stocks have been included, many thanks to the project members for this. Another species close to S. barbatus is Scleromystax sp. C 113, which has not yet been scientifically described. Here too, there are again offspring, albeit very few. I hope that in 2020 we will be able to keep these three species in our stock and also expand it. Therefore, I hope to be able to continue to count on you as project members.