ANB Nautical Forum opens tomorrow in Salvador with 43 speakers from four countries across ten panels

A gathering measured in people

When the 2nd ANB International Nautical Forum, organised by the Nautical Association of Bahia, opens its doors tomorrow, 16 September, at the Salvador Maritime Terminal, the programme already carries a number that sums up its ambition: 43 confirmed speakers, spread over ten panels in two days, coming from seven Brazilian states and three other countries, Spain, Portugal and Canada.

What stands out is not only the quantity but the range of voices. The same stage will host a vice admiral of the Brazilian Navy, a Paralympic medallist, the mayor of a Galician town, a chef who advises the UN and the Michelin guide, a researcher who has been diving on shipwrecks for four decades and the president of the body that represents Brazil's nautical production chain. It is a portrait of what the Ocean Economy means in practice: ports, sport, tourism, fishing, science, industry and defence, all connected by the same water.

Who is coming from abroad

The Galician delegation is the largest among the foreign guests. Alberto Fuentes Losada is secretary general of the Port of Vigo, one of Europe's biggest fishing ports, and opens the first panel, on port-city integration. Nava Castro, who ran Galicia's tourism for more than ten years and is now mayor of Ponteareas, brings the experience of the Way of St James to the discussion on nautical and religious tourism. Delfina Vicente Santiago, a sports psychologist who has worked with Spanish federations, joins the panel on nautical sports.

From Portugal comes Nuno Antunes Nobre, a lawyer and consultant on food systems who advises governments, the UN and the European Union, as well as brands such as Michelin and National Geographic. Founder of the International Sea Urchin Festival in Ericeira, he speaks on the fishing, aquaculture and gastronomy panel. From Canada, the Colombian geographer Camilo Mateo Botero, a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax with a doctorate in coastal zone management, sits on the coastal management panel.

The weight of public decision-makers

No panel holds up without the people who decide. Salvador's deputy mayor, Ana Paula Matos, and Bahia's tourism secretary, Maurício Bacelar, share the nautical and religious tourism panel with Pedro Costa, four-time president of ABAV and current chair of the Bahia Tourism Council. Mila Paes, Salvador's secretary for Economic Development, Employment and Income, and Maria Eduarda Gordilho Lomanto, the city's Secretary of the Sea, take part in the industry and port-city panels.

From the federal government, João Nicolodi, general coordinator for Coastal and Marine Management at the Ministry of the Environment, discusses the management of lakes, rivers and oceans. Antônio Gobbo, president of the port authority Codeba and chair of the board of the Bahia Naval Technology Cluster, and George da Hora Jr., president of Bahia Pesca, complete the line-up of public managers. The Brazilian Navy will be represented at the highest regional level by Vice Admiral Carlos Henrique de Lima Zampieri, commander of the 2nd Naval District, on the panel on oceans, economy and geopolitics.

Athletes, scientists and people who live from the sea

The nautical sports panel features two elite athletes. Renê Campos Pereira, a doctor and Paralympic rower, won bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Games, was a finalist at Rio 2016 and is an eight-time Brazilian champion. Bernardo Peixoto, Brazil's number one in the 2025 SSL ranking, sails the Olympic Nacra 17 class and is campaigning for Los Angeles 2028. Alongside them, Marcelo Baqueiro Fróes, who has organised Bahia's biggest regattas for more than 30 years and hosts the A Bordo programme on Rádio Metrópole.

The coastal management panel brings together science and memory. José Rodrigues, a professor at IF Baiano with a doctorate in marine geology, coordinates the Advanced Centre for Research and Development of the Blue Economy in Bahia. Maurício Carvalho, a biologist and diving instructor, has been researching shipwrecks for more than 40 years and runs the website Naufrágios do Brasil. Núbia Costa, a specialist in maritime law and ocean governance trained at the Naval War College, adds the legal dimension.

On the gastronomy side, chef Angeluci Figueiredo, of Restaurante Preta on Ilha dos Frades, and professor Fabiana Mortimer Amaral, of IFSC, who develops on-board gastronomic tourism experiences in Santa Catarina, show how the catch reaches the plate and becomes a tourism product.

Industry and marinas: from boatbuilders to boat keepers

The infrastructure investment panel includes Ernani Paciornik, founder of Grupo Náutica, creator of Revista Náutica and the Boat Show circuit, and today also head of Metalu and SF Marina Brasil, and Bianca Colepicolo, tourism secretary of Caraguatatuba and coordinator of the tourism chamber of the São Paulo Nautical Forum. With them, economist José Raimundo Zacarias, a reference in nautical diagnostics for Sebrae, and biologist Mario Wolff Bandeira, a consultant on licensing and environmental management of marinas.

On the nautical and naval industry panel, Mario Moura, who runs operations at the Enseada Shipyard in Maragogipe, and Miguel Andrade Filho, new business executive at Senai Cimatec, share the table with Leandro "Mané" Ferrari, president of ACATMAR, the Brazilian Nautical Association. Ferrari brings to Salvador the case of Santa Catarina, a state that went from 94 nautical companies at the start of the last decade to more than a thousand and today accounts for around 70% of Brazil's production of sport and leisure boats, in addition to the Itajaí and Navegantes shipyards that build vessels for Petrobras and the Navy's frigates.

The panel "Nautical by Women" gathers four executives from the sector: Cecília Avena, ANB communications director and Beneteau's representative in Brazil, who has crossed the Atlantic twice under sail; Leilane Loureiro, ANB marinas director and manager of Bahia Marina; Flávia Goffi, in charge of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race in Latin America; and Eliana Dumêt, a consultant working on Salvador's consolidation as an Ocean Economy hub. Santa Catarina will also be part of that conversation through Michele Castilho Henrique, ACATMAR's director of Tourism, Events and Sustainability and coordinator of the Limpeza dos Mares project, who speaks on the opening panel on port and city.

The programme, panel by panel

Wednesday, 16 September

• 8:30 am: official opening.
• 10:30 am: Panel 1, Port-City Integration, with Alberto Fuentes Losada, Antônio Gobbo, Maria Eduarda Gordilho Lomanto and Michele Castilho Henrique.
• 1:30 pm: Panel 2, Nautical Sports: Education, Health, Citizenship and Inclusion, with Bernardo Peixoto, Delfina Vicente Santiago, Marcelo Baqueiro Fróes and Renê Campos Pereira.
• 2:40 pm: Panel 3, Nautical and Religious Tourism as Drivers of Regional Development, with Ana Paula Matos, Edicarlos Moreira, Maurício Bacelar, Nava Castro and Pedro Costa.
• 4:30 pm: Panel 4, Investment in Nautical Infrastructure, Marinas and Related Facilities, with Bianca Colepicolo, Ernani Paciornik, José Raimundo Zacarias, Leilane Loureiro and Mario Wolff Bandeira.

Thursday, 17 September

• 8:30 am: Panel 5, Fishing and Aquaculture: from Production to Gastronomy, with Angeluci Figueiredo, Fabiana Mortimer Amaral, George da Hora Jr. and Nuno Antunes Nobre.
• 9:45 am: Panel 6, Coastal Management: Sustainable Lakes, Rivers and Oceans, with Camilo Mateo Botero, João Nicolodi, José Rodrigues, Maurício Carvalho and Núbia Costa.
• 11:00 am: Panel 7, Nautical by Women: Events, Shipyards, Marinas and Strategic Planning, with Cecília Avena, Eliana Dumêt, Flávia Goffi and Leilane Loureiro.
• 2:00 pm: Panel 8, Nautical and Naval Industry: Generating Jobs and Income, with Leandro Ferrari, Mario Moura, Miguel Andrade Filho and Mila Paes, moderated by Marcelo Sacramento.
• 3:50 pm: Panel 9, Oceans: Economy and World Geopolitics, with Eduardo Athayde, Henrique Trindade and Vice Admiral Carlos Henrique de Lima Zampieri.
• 4:20 pm: Panel 10, Inspiring Cases: what worked, with Antônio Fazio, Gilberto Menezes, Isabela Silva Suarez, José Manoel de Oliveira Reis and Marcelo Sacramento.
• 6:00 pm: closing cocktail.

The final panel closes the forum with concrete examples: Recife Marina, told by Antônio Fazio, who has followed it since construction; the waterway system of the city of São Paulo, presented by José Manoel de Oliveira Reis, manager at SPTrans; the membrane cleaning technology developed by Mazure with UFBA and Petrobras, presented by Marcelo Sacramento; and the view of Gilberto Menezes, vice president of the association of cruise port operators. The organisers' message is simple: the Ocean Economy already works in several parts of the country, and Bahia wants to learn from what has succeeded.

Details

2nd ANB International Nautical Forum
16 and 17 September 2026, from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm on Wednesday and from 8:30 am to 7:00 pm on Thursday
CONTERMAS, Salvador Maritime Terminal, Avenida da França, 393, Comércio, Salvador (BA)
Free registration at: doity.com.br/2o-forum-nautico-internacional-da-anb

The organisers note that the programme and the composition of the panels may change.