Guest blog post by Dr. Oldemar de Oliveira Carvalho Junior
After 40 years of protecting the Neotropical otter, Projeto Lontra is opening a new chapter. We are calling on researchers to contribute to the “Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health” Topical Collection in the journal Estuarine Management and Technologies, bridging the gap between long-term field observations to innovations in the field.
This call is a natural evolution of a story that began in January 1986. On the wild shores of Peri Lagoon in southern Brazil, my father and I stood beneath the canopy of the Atlantic Forest and dreamed aloud: What if we could protect this place by protecting its most elusive guardian, the Neotropical otter?
That dream became Projeto Lontra. For forty years, we have walked these shores not as distant scientists, but as neighbors, listening to the water, reading the spraints, and learning from fishers who’ve known these lagoons longer than any journal has existed.
But conservation cannot be a solitary act. And so, in the early 2000s, a quiet revolution began. People of all ages from France, Germany, and beyond started arriving, not as tourists, but as eco-volunteers through different international organizations, such as Cybelle Planète. They came not to “save” us, but to stand with us.
This is the heart of our partnership: reciprocity, not rescue.
More Than Volunteering. A Model of Shared Stewardship
Cybelle Planète does not sell travel; rather, it cultivates responsibility. Their volunteers spend weeks living alongside our team, collecting spraints at dawn, mapping latrines, teaching in local schools, and planting native trees. They return home not just with photos, but with data that feeds into global assessments, and with a transformed understanding of what it means to care for a shared planet.
As one Cybelle Planète coordinator once told me:
We don’t promote travel. We promote responsibility.
This ethos mirrors our own. In Brazil, conservation has too often been framed as a deficit, something we lack, something others must fix. But Projeto Lontra has always believed that local knowledge is expertise and long-term presence is data. Our 40-year dataset, born from patience, not satellites, is proof.
Now, this partnership takes on new scientific weight as a cornerstone of the Scientific Journal Estuarine Management and Technologies and its Topical Collection “Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health.” But rather than spotlight methods or metrics, we want to spotlight people and the relationships that make science meaningful.
Voices of the Collaboration
To truly reflect the spirit of this alliance, we invited key voices to share their vision:
Nosso papel não é promover viagens, mas cultivar a responsabilidade – de longo prazo, recíproca e fundamentada na confiança entre os atores locais da conservação e os cidadãos internacionais.
(Our role is not to promote travel, but to foster responsibility – long-term, reciprocal, and grounded in trust between local conservation actors and international citizens.)
Celine – Cybelle Planète Leadership – Vision Statement Placeholder
We are reminded that research and materials produced outside traditional commercial or academic sectors can be just as important.
For over 30 years, the Bulletin has amplified voices from the Global South that commercial journals overlook. Projeto Lontra’s legacy reminds us that grey literature is often golden and that true bioindicator science grows from the ground up.
Dr. Arno Gutleb, IUCN Otter Specialist Group Bulletin
A Call to Join the Movement
This isn’t just a story about otters. It’s about a new way of doing conservation:
- Municipalities can use tools like the Otter Health Index (OHI) to monitor their estuaries without million-dollar labs.
- Researchers can contribute to a truly global bioindicator framework that centers tropical species.
- Eco-volunteers can join hands-on programs that generate real data while fostering cross-cultural understanding.
And everyone – scientist, student, and citizen – can engage with the “Otters as Bioindicators” Topical Collection to help shift the narrative from extraction to exchange, from hierarchy to humility.
Because in the end, the otter teaches us this: ecosystems are woven from connection. So too must be our efforts to protect them.
Explore the Topical Collection: Otters as Bioindicators – EMT
Learn about volunteering with Cybelle Planète: www.cybelle-planete.org
Read the foundational synthesis paper: Otters as Bioindicators of Estuarine Health
