Vida sob impacto: adaptação e vulnerabilidade de comunidades pesqueiras artesanais após fortes eventos na costa brasileira

Abstract

The coast of the Northeast region of Brazil is marked by small-scale fishing, an activity that plays a cultural and economic role at national and local scale. In August 2019 the small-scale fishing communities were surprised by the most extensive oil spill in tropical regions and, in a few months after, they also had to deal with the economic restrictions of COVID-19 pandemic. These subsequent impacts required them to develop coping mechanisms to overcome the lack of income, once fishing was not allowed and/or productive. We conducted online and presential semi-structured interviews in three states in the Northeast to understand how coastal fishing communities dealt with the oil spill and pandemic and what characteristics drove the ability to cope.