Meet Alexandre Anderson – a water defender from Brazil

For Alexandre Anderson de Souza and other artisanal fishers, Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a source of livelihood, identity and culture.

But pollution from multiple sources, including the oil and gas industry, industrial waste and untreated sewage has turned the bay into a sacrifice zone. Artisanal fishers face contaminated water, declining fish stocks, eroded mangrove, shrinking fishing areas and increasingly dangerous routes, while polluters profit without paying for the environmental degradation they cause.

Alexandre co-founded Associação Homens e Mulheres do Mar (Association of Men and Women of the Sea – AHOMAR), a network of artisanal fishers that has spent nearly two decades defending the bay and their traditional way of life from the impacts of oil and gas infrastructure.…