Brazzil
March 2002
People
When Beto de Lima Ribeiro speaks about his vision for the fishing hamlet of Prainha Canto Verde, it is easy to mistake him for an internationally renowned expert on sustainable development. Only when you shake hands with "Seu Beto," as he is known to locals, is it noticeable that his hands are unmistakably those of a fisherman—thick, strong, and smoothly callused from years of labor on the open sea. Lately, Beto has had many opportunities to demonstrate his breadth of knowledge to the scores of journalists, government officials, scholars, and artists that have made the journey along the barren coast of the Brazilian state of Ceará to get a glimpse at what Beto and his neighbors have achieved. As Beto puts it, "we know we've done something special."
At first glance, traveling in isolated coastal regions of Ceará feels like a journey into a bygone era. Villages dot the coast between massive sand dunes that roll lazily into the tropical Atlantic waters. Cattle weave idly in and out of the few paved roads. In the afternoons, people take respite from the exhausting climate on hammocks set up on ventilated front porches. Fishermen still make the journey into the alto mar in the same way that they have for centuries, aboard small rugged sailboats known as jangadas.
Despite the simplicity of their design, jangadas have endured through several centuries of change in the Northeast. This unique vessel represents the fusion of a raft invented by the Tupiniquin Indians of the Northeast with technologies such as a sail, centerboard and bench seat which were first introduced by Portuguese colonists. The sail arrangement, which involves an unstayed mast and a sail bench, allows a triangular sail to be angled at 15 degrees to port or starboard with a system of pegs.
The deck of the raft sits intentionally low so that waves wash easily over the deck, allowing two to three person teams of fishermen to negotiate the choppy, fish abundant waters of the Northeast. When not in use, jangadas are hauled up and parked on the beach, later requiring a daring launch right into the crest of the waves at the start of any journey.
Not surprisingly, jangadeiros—as artesanal fishermen are known—have a hardy windswept look to them and a physique that shows the imprint of lives spent working at sea. The local fishermen are descended mostly from a mixture of escaped slaves and Indigenous tribes who first began settling at the fault line of the Portuguese and Dutch Empires in the early 17th century. As a result of their relative isolation, Northeastern fishing communities traditionally have enjoyed a large degree of autonomy from local, state, and national authorities.
Reflecting their status, jangadeiros have played a progressive political role in the history of northeast Brazil, beginning with a popular revolt in 1884 when local fishermen blocked the transfer of slaves from drought ridden Ceará to the booming sugar plantations of Pernambuco. Marking this historic protest in the national memory, Francisco José do Nascimento, the `Dragon of the Seas,' traveled to Rio de Janeiro aboard the jangada Liberdade.
Even though the Emperor refused to meet with him, the trip was a political victory for the abolitionists, heeding the abolition of slavery in 1888. As recently as 1991, fishermen from Prainha Canto Verde attracted national attention by making the same sea journey again to protest the marginalization of the jangadeiros by predatory land speculation and environmentally destructive fishing techniques.
The emergence of tourism has given rise to a host of other problems. Northeast Brazil boasts some of the most beautiful and unspoiled beaches in the world and traditional fishing communities still predominate in the litoral region of the coast. The stark beauty, tropical climate, and exotic cuisine have long proved an attraction for adventurous vacationers from southern Brazil, Europe, and the United States. Unfortunately, many impoverished fishing communities that have tried to cash in on the lucrative tourist market have instead found themselves opening the door to previously unheard of problems such as sex tourism, urban blight, and drug trafficking.
Likewise, the tourist market has often unleashed destructive, and sometimes violent, patterns of land speculation that force residents to abandon their homes for more isolated and impoverished regions. In an area of Brazil where most neighbors are related and many residents can trace their lineage in a single community back several generations such problems have proved markedly destructive to the traditional culture of jangadeiros.
In Prainha Canto Verde, however, extraordinary community leadership has given way to a different pattern of development. As one resident summarized the community's struggle, "We knew tourism was going to arrive, whether we wanted it or not. So we decided to take control, rather than let tourism take control of us." The fight to maintain command over their own destiny has been a long and hard fought battle for residents of Prainha Canto Verde.
In 1976, a professional developer bought several plots of land near the community and used political influence to gain title over the beach where fishermen have traditionally built their homes and gained their livelihood. Despite the fact that the first settlers had arrived in Prainha in 1850, none of the residents had managed—or bothered—to gain title over their land. In Brazil, gaining legal title to land can be a costly and litigious process that often effects the de facto exclusion of large sectors of the population, especially in regions such as Ceará where people of mixed Indigenous and African descent predominate.
Residents still recount this period of their history with subdued terror. "We didn't know what was going to happen. All of a sudden they (the developers) were saying we didn't exist...that what had always been ours was someone else's...at night we had to look out for pistoleiros (gunmen)." In an area of the world where small property owners often do not enjoy official legal title, and land conflicts are often settled at the butt of a gun, rather than in front of a judge, the extinction of the community was credibly at stake.
Many men in Prainha can still recount incidents where they stared down hired thugs and stood up to developers who swaggered into the community making veiled threats against the lives of local leaders. In response to these pressures, residents of Prainha Canto Verde founded a residence association and got in touch with the Centro de Defesa e Promoção dos Direitos Humanos (Center for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights), beginning a legal struggle that is still going on today.
The experience of organizing against an outside threat, however, has proved a galvanizing and binding force within the community for confronting a variety of social concerns. "With the struggle for land, we created faith that we could improve our own situation," says Dona Mirtes, a founding member of a mother's group that has effected substantial gains in health and education. Since 1995, Prainha Canto Verde has boasted an infant mortality rate of zero, and pre-natal care rate of 100 percent—achievements that remain elusive in much of Ceará.
In addition, community members have instituted a system of scholarships and transportation, so that all children of residents have the opportunity to attend high school in the nearby municipality of Beberibe. Since the beginning of the education projects, arts education in the elementary schools has blossomed. Prainha Canto Verde boasts a children's choir and, more recently, a local resident and respected musician has begun giving guitar lessons to young men in the community, keeping the songs of the "Litoral" alive for another generation.
Prainha Canto Verde's most innovative project, however, has been their effort to implement tourism in a way that gains income for the community without promoting the sort of social unraveling that has taken place elsewhere. Through the residents association and tourism cooperative, the tendency has been to assert autonomy over services that might normally be associated with local government in the US. Recognizing that a system of land rights and urban planning was essential to preserve the integrity of their project, residents of Prainha have instituted their own system by which land title is recognized and new construction projects are approved.
Furthermore, the cooperative provides necessary services for the local tourist industry, such as advertising, security, and sanitation. In exchange, the cooperative taxes member families who provide services to tourists, such as housing, food, and transportation. The cooperative then redistributes that money with a fund for social and education projects, providing a tangible benefit for the entire community. As a result of their willingness to take the needs of their community into their own hands, Prainha probably enjoys the best social services of any community of its size on the "Litoral."
Substantial adaptations have also been made to the local fishing economy. In 1987, a Swiss tourist and frequent visitor to Prainha, René Shärer, went to a meeting of the residents association and proposed the establishment of a fishing cooperative, offering to use his contacts and business knowledge to acquire the startup capital. The venture has been a remarkable success. In the past, fishermen had only one market for their fish, a local marketer, popularly referred to as the "Capitão" (Captain) who, by right of his monopoly over transportation to outside markets, could decide prices.
The cooperative ensures that fishermen get a competitive price for their fish and a fair price for necessary industrial items such as hooks, rope, nets, and ice. Today, the "Capitão" and the cooperative exist side by side on the beach in quiet competition. According to René, in the first year of the cooperative, the price paid for fish doubled while the price paid for lobster tripled—previously unthinkable gains in income. Since then, prices have held their value with the devaluation of the Real, an achievement that few businesses in northeast Brazil have managed.
Increasingly, Prainha's residents have articulated their struggle as one incorporating economic, social, and environmental concerns. The last weekend of November of every year marks the annual Ecological Regatta, a community tradition that has been running now for eight years. The race itself is a hotly contested competition in which jangadeiros from throughout the region gather to compete for a purse that often exceeds several hundred dollars. More than a boat race, the regatta fuses the cultural and political energies of the community in a festive celebration of resistance, environmental activism, and local traditions.
The decorative sails designed by children in the town are equally important to the actual competition, and involve months of careful planning, design, and construction. The environmental theme chosen by the community this year is the plight of the endangered peixe boi (manatee). Increasingly, this event has attracted visitors, supporters, and media attention, but the race itself still remains close enough to heart of the small community that locals take on hushed and excited tones when they speculate about who will prove this year's winner.
Traveling by jangada can be an exhilarating and somewhat perilous experience. It's a rare novice that makes it back to shore without getting ill at least once. The light-weight boats are driven off the sand into the sea with a system of boards and rounded wedges. Once situated in shallow water, the mestre or captain lifts the 200-pound mast into place, hoists the sail, and tacks at an angle to the coast. Waves roll over the deck throughout this process, requiring jangadeiros to possess unusually sure balance and nerves of steel. Once in deep water, the jangada bobs easily with the sea and experienced fishermen can move about the small deck with relative ease.
In the 20th century, jangadas were adapted to include a cabin beneath deck about the size and width of three men lying on their backs. Since then, jangadeiros have been able to sleep and take respite from harsh weather. Because of the perilous size of their craft, fisherman still have to wake up several times at night to make sure that no ships large enough to send off a dangerous wake are approaching. Jangadas can carry fisherman as far as 40 miles off coast and are regularly employed in 2-3 day journeys at sea. To tap the abundant wealth of the sea, jangadeiros employ every mode of fishing instrument, including nets, hooks, and traps, sometimes bringing back as much as 250 pounds of fish.
Jangadeiros tend to play down the dangers of their craft with a certain bravado when faced with questions about the risks of braving the Atlantic aboard boats that Página: 6
Patrick Heffernan, author of "The Jangadas of Northeast Brazil," has described as resembling a "prehistoric windsurfer." Every year a few fishermen die from work related accidents. Tellingly, jangadeiros are quick to discuss the safety features of other types of fishing boats, but the prevailing attitude remains one of not so subtle defense of their craft and their way of doing things. "Driving is dangerous too," they will remind you, if you push too hard about their fear of the sea.Prainha Canto Verde's success at managing development has given way to a different sort of interaction between outsiders and locals than one typically experiences in other coastal communities. Locals tend to view visitors not as invaders or usurpers, but as contributors to the community's ongoing social projects. Tourism is still new enough that it remains a novelty. Locals have a genuine and refreshing interest in outsiders. Little kids chase after foreigners to ask them in broken, giggly English, "where are you from?"
If you take a walk along Prainha's one road at the right time of day on a Sunday, it's not unusual to be invited in by local families for a hardy lunch of fish soup. Community pride and continuity make it possible for a different sort of interaction between outsiders and residents. Residents of Prainha even take pride in the sort of people who come to visit their community, and will tell you that their tourists are "different" and even "better" than the sort of riff-raff that end up spending time at more well-trodden destinations, such as Canoa Quebrada and Jericoacoara. As João Fernandes Filho, the owner of Prainha's only Pousada, puts it, "Most people here are related so we're still not used to all this coming and going...we make friends quickly and when people leave we feel saudade—Brazilian for longing, loneliness, the blues."
New economic opportunities have not come without new conflicts and contradictions in the community. Not everyone has taken well to the land regulations implemented by residents association. "Some people just don't get it," comments Beto, with evident frustration, "Some people say, `hell I was born here, why can't I build wherever I want?' They don't understand that what we're doing is making sure that Prainha doesn't turn into a favela (shantytown)." In the past, fishermen would simply pick an attractive space and build a house. The connection between curtailing this sort of development and realizing gains in health and education remains less than completely clear to everyone in the community.
Outside pressures have also begun to affect life in Prainha, as families seeking respite from northeast Brazil's chronic drought and the displacement of fishermen from other communities encroach ever greater on the borders of the community. Prainha's struggle, implementing rules based development while providing decent social services, is one that Brazil has not been entirely successful at on the macro level, and communicating and maintaining that vision is a monumental task even on a small scale.
Already, changes are taking place in Prainha as a result of tourism. "You sacrifice a little tranquility," says Pelé, who at 57, is one of Prainha's oldest fishermen and an eminent leader of the land struggle. Never is this fact more self-evident than on Sunday afternoons along Prainha's beachfront. The younger generation mixes easily with the crowds of day-trippers from Fortaleza and beyond who in the past year have quickly learned to take advantage of Prainha's freshly minted road.
The many beach stalls are doing a brisk business in beer and cachaça (sugarcane liquor), while scantily clad crowds of locals and outsiders bounce sensuously to the northeastern rhythms of pagode and forró. From a safe distance, fishermen tinker absentmindedly with their colorful boats, and suspiciously eye the noisy spectacle taking place on their beach. "Some of them (his grandchildren) don't want to learn anything about the ways of the sea already," says Pelé reflectively, gesturing across the dunes.
Not everyone though takes a pessimistic view about the changes taking place within the community. Beto likes to tell a story about his father who, during a period in the 1960s, briefly left the community to work as a captain on a mechanized fishing boat. During this period in Brazil's history, repeated economic crises and state policies that regarded jangadas as long overdue for placement in museum exhibits had put intense pressure on fishermen to abandon their communities.
Despite the higher pay and safer working conditions on the commercial trawler, Beto's father found that he simply didn't enjoy commercial fishing as much as being out on the open sea in a small boat with a few friends. "He came home, fixed his boat, and has not left since," explains Beto, "We (jangadeiros) fish because we love it. There's something about it. Out there on the ocean, no one can tell you what to do, you take what you need from the sea, and when you come back to shore you keep the best fish for your family, and sell the rest. There's something about it that makes you feel free."
Jesse Levinson is a recent graduate of Georgetown University and a Fulbright Scholar living in Fortaleza, Ceará. Feel free to forward any comments or inquires to jesselevinson@hotmail.com