In November 2015, the Fundão dam, located in the city of Mariana (MG), broke down, releasing about 40 million cubic meters of iron ore into nature and causing one of the greatest environmental disasters in Brazil. About 17 days after the rupture, this ore reached the mouth of the River Doce and was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. In this context, the Rede Rio Doce Mar was created in 2018 and through the Technical-Scientific Cooperation Agreement signed between FEST and the RENOVA Foundation, the Programa de Monitoramento da Biodiversidade Aquática (PMBA) was created.
GEMARS is one of the institutions that is part of the PMBA and is included in annex 6 (marine mammals, turtles and seabirds), developing the project “Assessing marine mammals abundance and distribution using aerial surveys''. The main objective is to assess the distribution and abundance of marine megafauna in potentially impacted areas around the mouth of the River Doce and adjacent marine protected areas (APA Costa das Algas and REVIS de Santa Cruz).
Among the cetaceans, six species have already been registered: the franciscana (Pontoporia blainvillei), the guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis), the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), the Risso's dolphin (Grampus griseus), the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), and the southern right whale (Eubalaena australis). In addition to cetaceans, during aerial surveys we recorded a high number of elasmobranchs, turtles and seabirds, highlighting the great biodiversity of the coast of Espírito Santo and its ecological importance.
At the end of the first monitoring year in 2019, an annual report was prepared (http://www.ibama.gov.br/cif/notas-tecnicas/ct-bio/relatorios-da-rede-rio-doce-mar) compiling the main results of all projects linked to the PMBA. The studies that are being developed can be used as a baseline to monitor long-term impacts of the mud on the environment, and understand how the species that inhabit the region are being affected.
