Dinâmicas socioambientais dos jangadeiros no litoral sul de Pernambuco

Abstract

The raft is one of the oldest vessels, around thirty thousand years old, and is used by different social groups. In the past, this means of transportation had several uses, such as fishing, promoting commercial relations and the crossing of people and cargo, today being used for fishing and tourism activities. In the 16th century, there was a mixture of indigenous, Portuguese and African people on this vessel in its adaptation/construction. It is possible to find rafts in several countries and continents, such as: Asia, Africa and India, but it was on the beaches of Northeast Brazil that they began to be seen to this day, mainly due to the formation of maritime and coastal communities in which the Jangadeiros live, mainly or partially, from fishing and tourism. Therefore, rafters are resistance fishermen, who are part of one of the specific branches of artisanal fishing, which denies the thesis that they were doomed to disappear, with their respective rafts, by some authors of the time (1957-2011), due to modern vessels (industrial) and technological. Thus, the general objective was to analyze the know-how of the rafters in the south of Pernambuco, which allowed their resistance over time. The study was carried out in Rio Formoso, Tamandaré and São José da Coroa Grande, municipalities located on the south coast of Pernambuco, and which are located in an environmental protection area (APA Costa dos Corais). The target audience were the rafters who continue to exist and reproduce using the raft as a means of transportation to acquire their fish (income) and tourism to this day. The research had a qualitative approach and ethnographic study, based on semi-structured interviews, direct observations, guided tours and use of the snowball sampling technique, where one interviewee indicates another and so on. This methodological design enabled the production/realization of social cartography, to generate representative maps of the rafters' terrestrial and marine environments, with a collection of photographs of the rafters' daily lives. A total of 25 rafters were interviewed, analyzing their knowledge, environmental impacts present in these communities and the recognition of their territories. In general, the rafters have been adapting their activities in fishing and tourism, also in their fishing gear, in the profitability of fish sales in their municipalities, but with the problem of environmental impacts in their territories. Therefore, it is concluded that the rafters have new socio-environmental dynamics in these activities, maintaining their traditionalities and sustainable forms of fishing whenever possible. Even with great difficulties, whether due to the reduction of fish, or the lack of support from public powers and policies (federal, state and municipal), or pollution, deforestation of mangroves and real estate speculation, this traditional community still resists. In other words, they maintain their secular maritime culture, with their rafts and adaptations to the capitalist world in the 21st century, possibilities of production and social reproduction for many subjects and communities that depend directly on the fact of being and becoming a rafter.