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Livelihood Diversity, Food Security and Resilience among the Caiçara of Coastal Brazil Natalia Hanazaki & Fikret Berkes & Cristiana S. Seixas & Nivaldo Peroni Published online: 12 December 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012 Abstract To analyze the relationships between local live- lihoods and vulnerability to food insecurity, using a resil- ience approach, we interviewed 350 households from seven mixed-heritage Caiçara communities in Paraty, Brazil. Fishing was a livelihood activity for 70 % of the households, and the main declared activity for 16 %. Fishing was combined with other activities such as day-wage jobs, tourism, agriculture, and commerce. Livelihood activities were not homogeneously distributed among communities, and a higher proportion of fishing households were found in generalist communities. Food insecurity appeared to be transitory (and not chronic), and fishing is central to food security. Small-scale fisheries cannot be seen in isolation from the diversity of activities that make up the livelihood portfolios of coastal communities. In view of rapid change in the area, pressures from protected areas, large-scale fisheries, tourism development and economic change in general, threaten the resilience of Caiçara liveli- hoods, with implications for future food insecurity. Keywords Small-scale fisheries . Food security . Vulnerability . Atlantic forest Introduction Inmany rural areas of theworld, peoplemake a living based on a diverse portfolio of activities and resources (Bailey and Pomeroy 1996; Ellis 2000). A livelihood is looking for opportunities to do many things, diversifying activities and relationships (Chambers 1997), and mobilizing a range of assets (Allison and Ellis 2001). Those who have access to a greater diversity of assets have a greater range of options and the flexibility to shift their livelihood strategies as needed. The sustainability of these livelihoods depends not only on maintaining assets of natural resources but also on the ability to cope with and recover from shocks and stresses. Here we focus on the diversity of livelihood activities by a coastal population in Brazil, and implications for livelihood resilience and food security. The term livelihood has been used widely since Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environment and De- velopment (Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; it is considered to provide a better descriptor than “employment” for resource-dependent rural communities. According to Ellis (2000: 10), “a livelihood comprises the assets (natural, phys- ical, human, financial and social capital), the activities, and the access to these (mediated by institutions and social relations) that together determine the living gained by the individual or household.” The emphasis on livelihoods is helpful in under- standing processes of sustainable development, as the liveli- hood approach helps ground sustainability by bringing social issues to the foreground and highlighting development dilem- mas from the point of view of the local people. In a seminal paper, Chambers and Conway (1992: 6) suggested that “a livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities, assets and entitlements, while not undermining the natural resource base”. The sustainable livelihoods concept has resulted in the creation of elaborate frameworks, and dominant themes have included the con- sideration of the assets of the poor, dealing with them as clusters of interrelated capitals, or as livelihood strategies used by people (Bebbington 1999). The notion of coping with and recovering from stresses and shocks lies at the heart of the Chambers and Conway (1992) definition, point- ing out that sustainability of livelihoods depends on the N. Hanazaki (*) :N. Peroni Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil e-mail: natalia@ccb.ufsc.br F. Berkes Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada C. S. Seixas NEPAM–Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 DOI 10.1007/s10745-012-9553-9 ability of people to deal, not with some “average” condition, but with the “lean seasons”, natural disasters, unfavorable government policies, and generally difficult times. Thus, sustainable livelihoods require options and flexibility, cap- tured by the concept of resilience. Diversification of liveli- hood, especially the diversity in the use of “natural capital” in the Bebbington (1999) framework, is important in this regard because it is an effective way for dealing with risk and vul- nerability (Turner et al. 2003) and for building resilience (Marschke and Berkes 2006). The resilience aspect of sustainable livelihoods, although explicit in the Chambers and Conway definition, has re- ceived relatively little attention. Resilience offers a lens with which to understand stresses and shocks in social-ecological systems, and specifically the dynamics of livelihoods of resource-dependent rural people (Berkes et al. 2003). Framing livelihood issues in resilience terms provides new insights regarding the ability to reduce vulnerabilities (Schwarz et al. 2011), to cope with adversity (Marschke and Berkes 2006), and to help evaluate development policies (Robinson and Berkes 2010). Resilience may be thought of as “insurance” in the livelihood system (Coomes et al. 2010), and may be incorporated into management objectives, for example, as part of the “primary fisheries management” of Cochrane et al. (2011) whereby social and ecological resilience is considered an integral part of ensuring food security and planning poverty reduction. Defined as “the capacity of a system to absorb distur- bance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks” (Walker et al. 2004), resilience is the capacity of a social-ecological system to continually change and adapt, and yet remain within critical thresholds (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Hence, it characterizes a system’s ability to deal with change. Adaptability, as part of resilience, is the capacity to adjust responses to changing external drivers (e.g., globalization, government policies) and internal pro- cesses (e.g., population increase, out-migration), and there- by allow for development along the current trajectory (stability domain). Transformability, by contrast, is the ca- pacity to cross thresholds into a new trajectory, for example when a community of fisheries is transformed into a com- munity of tourism workers (Folke et al. 2010). Inspired by the concept of ecological niche, we use a measure of diversity, or heterogeneity, to analyze the gener- alization and specialization of the communities. Diversity indices were used in human ecology especially to compare the niche breadth related to animal protein consumption or to food consumption in general (Hardesty 1975; Begossi and Richerson 1993; Cavallini and Nordi 2005; Hanazaki and Begossi 2000). Here we use the Shannon-Wiener index as a measure of heterogeneity (Magurran 1988) as an additional tool to understand the diversity of livelihood activities. We follow the entitlement terminology of Sen (1981): direct entitlement (e.g., a family grows its own food or catches its own fish); indirect entitlement (e.g., a family uses income to purchase food); and transfer entitlement (e.g., a family obtains donated food). Famine or food inse- curity could occur when entitlements are disrupted and a household cannot switch to another way of obtaining food. People may experience a loss of direct entitlement when, for example, crops fail or people lose access to resources; an indirect entitlement loss could occur, for example, through unemployment or rising food prices. Sen’s entitlement framework is useful because it disaggregates the reasons why a person or group may become vulnerable, and allows for the substitution ofindirect for direct entitlements (and vice versa) for example when an artisanal fisher family starts to obtain tourism income and buys increasingly greater parts of their food. Small-scale fisheries can have an important contribution to poverty alleviation and food security (Berkes et al. 2001). We follow Béné et al. (2007) to use the 1996 World Food Summit definition of food security as “a condition when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Food insecurity may affect people at various levels of social organization (individual, household… national) and may be temporary (transitory) or permanent (chronic). In this paper, we deal with food security at the household and community levels and with vulnerability in the limited sense of vulner- ability to food insecurity. We have two main objectives. First, we describe and analyze the diversity of livelihood activities in Caiçara com- munities from the Southeast coast of Brazil and its signifi- cance for local resilience. Second, we discuss the relationships between local livelihoods and vulnerability to food insecurity. Caiçara are people with mixed origin from Portuguese colo- nists and Amerindians, living along the Southeastern Brazilian coast, who still retain subsistence activities directly related to the exploitation of natural resources, such as fishing and shifting cultivation (Adams 2000; Begossi et al. 2010). Area and People Paraty is a coastal municipality located at the southern part of Rio de Janeiro State, Southeastern Brazil (between 22o 54′S to 23o 22′s and 44o 31′Wand 44o 53′W). Paraty was an important port for trading goods and gold from the Brazilian countryside between the 16th century and the late 19th cen- tury. The current economy of the municipality is based on tourism, services and fishing. The whole area is located in the Atlantic Forest region, which makes it important for biodiversity conservation purposes. Since there are several fishing communities, the Paraty area is a focus of recent 154 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 governmental and nongovernmental efforts on issues related to management of small-scale fisheries. The total population of the municipality is about 37 000 and most people live in the urban area (74 %) (IBGE 2001). The rural population is distributed in several communities, including fishing communities along the coast. This study is focused in two main regions of Paraty, including Caiçara communities with different degrees of involvement in fish- eries, tourism and small-scale agriculture (Begossi et al. 2010). The first one is located in the southern part of the municipality and comprises the communities of Trindade, Praia do Sono and Ponta Negra. Trindade has been a tourism spot since the 1980’s and still has several families involved with fisheries. Praia do Sono and Ponta Negra are accessible only by boat or walking trail, and Ponta Negra is the most isolated community included in this research. The second region is located in the central part of the municipality and comprises the communities of Barra Grande, Praia Grande and Ilha do Araújo. Barra Grande is the most urbanized one, where fishers use a small river to reach the sea. Ilha do Araújo is an island close to the mainland, facing Praia Grande. Additionally we included Tarituba due to its impor- tance as a fishing community in the northern part of the municipality. Data Collection and Analysis Community selection was based on previous data from Begossi et al. (2010) and on a set of criteria including the following: a) the presence of shifting agriculture and fishing as part of the community economic activities at different levels; b) different degrees of isolation: we included both easy accessible communities and communities that are ac- cessible only by boat or trail; c) different degrees of tourism development; d) regional representativeness, including com- munities from the southern, central and northern part of the municipality. Tarituba was included mainly for regional representativeness. Data were collected through interviews based on struc- tured questionnaires (Bernard 1994) in 350 households car- ried out by a research team (questionnaires are available from the first author). Each interview was preceded by an explanation about the research goals to obtain informed consent; formal consent was also discussed with leaders of each community. The questionnaires had four main parts: household information; fishing activity details; local food production and food security indicators; and life quality and future prospects. The questionnaire was pre-tested in June 2010 and applied between June and July 2010. Since the size of the communities varies from less than 50 households to more than 300, we defined the sample size in each community assuming 10 % of sampling error (based on Bernard 1994). We did systematic sampling according to the targeted sample size (Bernard 1994). The number of interviews in each community is summarized in Table 1. The average duration of interviews was 23 min. Households usually represent nuclear families with an average of about four persons. Data analysis used mostly descriptive statistics and percen- tages. Qualitative information collected during fieldwork was used to check the answers given by the interviewees. We accessed and compared the Shannon-Wiener index of diversity (base log 10) (Magurran 1988) using the software Ecosim 7.72 (Gotelli and Entsminger 2011). We considered the diversity of livelihood activities in each community given by the number of households involved with different numbers of activities, which varied from 14 to 16 per community. The sampling unit was the household, and the abundance levels were compared with the smaller samples through rarefaction, with confidence levels intervals of 95 % due to the different sample sizes. Results Livelihood Diversity Overall, fishing is the single most important livelihood activity, both as the main activity of the household and as a complementary livelihood activity (Fig. 1). Fishing is the main declared livelihood activity in 16 % (57) of the house- holds. Fifty-two percent (182) mentioned it as one of the livelihood activities taking place in the household. However, 32 % (111) of the households did not consider themselves as fishers. Among the total sampled households, fishing was mentioned as one livelihood activity by almost 70 % of the households (Fig. 1). This proportion varied by community; from 18 % in Barra Grande to 93 % in Ilha do Araujo (percentages in Praia Grande: 32; Tarituba: 35; Trindade: 46; Praia do Sono: 72; Ponta Negra: 75). Table 1 Community size, number of sampled households, and the total sampled population in each community Community Estimated household number Households sampled Total sampled population Tarituba (TA) 70 34 124 Barra Grande (BG) 318 76 309 Praia Grande (PG) 80 44 193 Ilha do Araujo (IA) 118 54 215 Trindade (TR) 228 70 228 Praia do Sono (PS) 112 40a 178 Ponta Negra (PN) 48 32 140 Total 974 350 1387 a 11 refusals, 17 closed houses, 13 empty houses Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 155 Other important activities were tourism, day wage jobs, and commerce. Some day wage jobs and commerce were directly related to tourism, for example wage jobs as house- cleaners for summer cottages; shops for tourists; shops selling construction material used for building new cottages; and people working in bars and restaurants. Tourism-related activities were more relevant in Trindade, Ilha do Araujo and Praia Grande. Construction appeared as a main activity in 10 % of the households, and people who worked in construction as an additional activity usually did so on a day-wage basis. Other activities included a wide array of occupations, such as driver, autonomous worker, net weav- er, carpenter, mechanic, door-to-door salesperson and musi- cian. More than 45 % of thehouseholds had some income from retirement and pension. Small-scale farming was con- centrated in a few places, such as Ponta Negra and Barra Grande, and nearly absent in other communities such as Tarituba. Marine invertebrate gathering, crewing in larger- scale fisheries, non-timber forest products (NTFP) extrac- tion, and handicraft making were often supplementary in- come sources not mentioned as main livelihood activities. This array of livelihood activities is not homogeneously distributed among communities. Table 2 shows the gradient from the more generalist communities to the more special- ized, according to the number of households involved with different numbers of activities. Ponta Negra, Praia do Sono and, to some extent, Praia Grande, are generalist communi- ties, with a higher diversity of households involved in dif- ferent numbers of livelihood activities and a more even distribution of the number of activities among the house- holds. In these communities, we observed households un- dertaking from one to eight different activities. At the other extreme, Tarituba and, to some extent, Ilha do Araújo, were less diverse in terms of number of livelihood activities, i.e., they were the more specialized communities. In general, a higher proportion of fishing households were found in the more diverse communities, with Ilha do Araújo showing a remarkable exception. Despite being the main livelihood activity for the studied communities as a whole, fishing was rarely the unique activity of a household. Only 1 % of 182 households relied exclusively on fishing. Fishing households on average had four activities (mean03.94, SD01.41). That is, fishing was combined with three, up to seven, other activities. In descending order, these activities were: day-wage jobs (46 %), tourism (43 %), agriculture (32 %), and commerce (28 %) (Table 3). Among livelihood assets, we analyzed food produc- tion as natural capital (Fig. 2), and asked about household production for nine items directly used for household con- sumption or sale or both. Less than 0.5 % of fish, shellfish, bitter manioc, banana and other fruits were produced exclu- sively for sale. Fish was produced by 58 % of the households, varying from 29 % in Tarituba to 83 % in Ilha do Araújo. Shellfish production came from aquaculture and invertebrate gather- ing and was reported by 30 % of the households (range from 3 in Tarituba to 44 % in Trindade). Chicken and fowl production was present in 27 % of the households, and appeared to be more important in more isolated communi- ties such as Ponta Negra (47 %) and Praia do Sono (40 %). Even though reported by only 13 % of all households, the production of bitter manioc was highly important in Ponta Negra, with 44 % of the households producing it. This production does not occur throughout the year, but the seasonal processing of bitter manioc is an important com- munity activity (which was even more important in the past) strengthening social relations through community exchange networks. In all other communities, less than 11 % of house- holds produced bitter manioc, due to reasons such as lack of land or lack of processing mills. The production of manioc flour has traditionally used communal mills (casas de farinha), a mode of production related to the reciprocity in the cultiva- tion of manioc in shifting cultivation. Sweet manioc was reported in 28 % of the households, varying from half of Ponta Negra households to none in Fig. 1 Main livelihood activities (self-declared) and complementary livelihood activities (chosen from a list) in 345 rural households in Paraty municipality, Brazil. Data in percentages 156 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 Tarituba. Vegetables (32 %), banana (63 %), and other fruits (59 %) were more important in Barra Grande (51, 61, and 70 % respectively) and Ponta Negra (28, 84, and 75 %, respectively) than in Tarituba (6, 26, and 24 %, respectively). The explanation is that Barra Grande is the most distant from the sea, and also has a lower proportion of fishers (Table 4). Ponta Negra, by contrast, is the most isolated community and more dependent of local resources, as reflected in the depen- dence of NTFP harvest such as medicinal plants (59 %) (Fig. 2). Other assets mentioned as produced by the households, in low proportions, were sugarcane, beans, maize and spices such as annatto. From Fig. 2 we infer that several house- holds rely on purchased or received items for food security. Table 5 provides data on the distribution of the fish catch. On the whole, some 97 % of households that fish reported consuming their own fish, with a smaller percent selling their catch. Local sharing was also high, except for Barra Grande, the community with the lowest proportion of fish- ers. In this community, fishing was less important than other activities such as agriculture, commerce, tourism, or con- struction; thus fish production was low, with small surpluses to share or sell. Most communities reported the role of fishing as an indirect entitlement; especially Ponta Negra and Ilha do Araújo, with high percentages of sales to fish markets and middlemen. Food Security and Vulnerability Fishing seems to be the key to food security in the study area. The fish caught by the households is distributed to household consumption (direct entitlement of Sen 1981), Table 2 Diversity of livelihood activities measured by Shannon-Wiener index (diagonals, bold) and comparisons of rarefacted samples between each pair of communities Shannon PN PS PG TR BG IA TA PN 1.844 PS ns. 1.818 PG ns. ns. 1.785 TR * * ns. 1.724 BG * * * * 1.606 IA * * * * ns. 1.569 TA * * * * * ns. 1.368 PN Ponta Negra (n032), PS Praia do Sono (n040), PG Praia Grande (n044), TRTrindade (n070), BG Barra Grande (n076), IA Ilha do Araújo (n054), TATarituba (n034) *Significant differences with 95 % of confidence interval for a rarefacted sample; ns.0no significant differences Table 3 Complementarity of fishing and other livelihood activities Fishing and… Total (n0192) PN (n023) PS (n029) PG (n029) TR (n039) BG (n021) IA (n041) TA (n010) Day wage 46 26 45 79 38 62 46 20 Tourism 43 48 66 37 44 19 44 30 Agriculture 32 43 34 21 49 38 12 20 Commerce 28 17 72 21 26 24 15 10 Homemaker 23 43 17 37 8 19 29 10 Inv. gathering 23 26 7 47 23 14 24 20 Other 23 17 17 42 18 14 32 10 Retired/pensioner 20 17 17 21 28 24 17 0 Handicrafts 16 17 34 26 13 10 7 10 Pvt. sector empl. 14 9 10 16 5 43 12 10 Pub. sector empl. 8 9 3 0 8 10 10 20 Crew industrial fish. 7 17 21 0 0 0 5 10 NTFP extraction 6 22 3 5 5 0 5 0 Construction 3 0 0 5 0 19 2 0 PN Ponta Negra, PS Praia do Sono, PG Praia Grande, TR Trindade, BG Barra Grande, IA Ilha do Araújo, TA Tarituba Data in percentage Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 157 shared with relatives and neighbors (transfer entitlement), or sold to fish markets, middlemen, restaurants or directly to tourists (indirect entitlement) (Table 5). In fact, all house- holds who fished in four of the seven communities in the study area (Praia do Sono, Trindade, Barra Grande and Tarituba) consumed their own fish. Three-quarters of fishing households shared with relatives and over two-thirds with neighbors and friends, indicating the importance of sharing networks. A key question regarding food security, households were asked if they suffered any food shortage in the previous 12- month period. Figure 3 shows that in the area as a whole, only 27 % reported a food shortage at some point in the last annual cycle. Since food exchange networks seem to be important, as shown by the data on fish catch distributions, we asked households if they have given food, or received food, from other households (Fig. 4). Looking at all food products, about half of the families in the study area “sometimes” or “often” gave food or received food. There were somehow greater numbers of food-donating households than receiving households. Three communities in particular (Trindade, Tarituba, Praia Grande) seemed to have a highpercentage of households receiving food. What are the alternatives to food exchanges when a household lacks food? Table 6 indicates that only a minority of families (15 %) “never lacked food”; nearly two-thirds (63 %) said that they “can always buy” as needed, and another 19 % mentioned they “sometimes can buy”. These results highlight the importance of indirect entitlements (Sen 1981) as a function of the growing wage income from tourism and other sources. Only 3 % relied on food donations or Sen’s (1981) transfer entitlements when lacking food. Table 5 also helps identify the vulnerable households: the 3 % who rely on donations and perhaps many of the 19 % who can “buy only sometimes”when short of food. These households are vulner- able to such factors as changes in the sharing ethic, employ- ment opportunities, and food prices. Discussion The argument we build here connects livelihood diversity, resilience and food security. Food security concerns all people, at all times, having physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food (Béné et al. 2007). The diversity of livelihood activities is a key characteristic of the study area and of Caiçara people in general (Begossi et al. 2010; Hanazaki et al. 2007), and of many rural societies in the world (Ellis 2000; Coomes et al. 2010). The innovation in our paper is that we measure this diversity to help analyze specialist and generalist strategies among communities and households, and trade-offs among activities. Much of the diversity is oriented to local food production, but an important part is also oriented to cash production essential for the functioning of the mixed economy. Fig. 2 Livelihood assets related to food production in the households, for nine selected items. Data in percentage (n0350) Table 4 Livelihood diversity in perspective Communities Percentage of households involved in fishing Livelihood diversity Main source of livelihood Ponta Negra 72 1.84 Fishing Praia do Sono 72 1.82 Fishing Praia Grande 66 1.79 Mix: Day wage, fishing Trindade 56 1.72 Mix: tourism, commerce Barra Grande 28 1.60 Mix: Day wage, agriculture, commerce Ilha do Araujo 76 1.57 Fishing Tarituba 29 1.37 Mix: commerce, fishing 158 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 Using the parallell with the ecological niche concept, it is clear that complementarity occurs between fisheries and these other activities at the household level, but there is a small “niche overlap” with some activities such as construc- tion, NTFP harvesting, and crewing in larger-scale fisheries. At the community level though, it is worth noting that such “niche overlap” is rare. Exceptions include crewing in Ponta Negra and Praia do Sono; NTFP extraction in Ponta Negra, and construction in Barra Grande. One possible explanation for the first case is that traditionally, in isolated Caiçara communities such as Ponta Negra and Praia do Sono, young men who do not have much working opportunity leave the community to work as a crew member in large-scale fisheries, while part of the family stays in the community practicing small-scale fishing (Futemma and Seixas 2008). The fact that Ponta Negra is the most isolated community with no road access may help explain household depen- dence both in fisheries and NTFP products. This isolation has an indirect influence on NTFP harvest and use of shift- ing cultivation because difficulty of access means lower intensity of monitoring and enforcement. For additional evidence, Ponta Negra has the second highest percentage of fishers who are also farmers (Table 3). The third excep- tion may be explained by the fact that Barra Grande is the most urbanized of the communities studied, it has only river access to the sea, and is also the one with the lowest proportion of fishing households (28 %) (Table 4). Hence the few fishermen in the community are likely to work in construction as a complementary source of income. Medicinal plants have been known as a key livelihood asset in Caiçara communities (Begossi et al. 2002; Hanazaki et al. 2000). We made a distinction between bitter manioc and sweet manioc varieties due to the different role of each in the food system and in mode of production (Peroni et al. 2007). Bitter manioc is usually cultivated in clearances within the forest (roças) and needs to be processed into flour (to reduce the cyanogenic content) before consump- tion, while sweet manioc can be cultivated both in home- gardens and in roças and can be eaten directly as a boiled root crop (Emperaire and Peroni 2007). Manioc flour and the boiled manioc roots are traditional food sources in several parts of lowland South America. We separated ba- nana from other fruits due to its importance as a cash crop in the Atlantic forest coast. We observed a small proportion of households producing manioc flour, a traditional component of Caiçara diet. Given the difficulty of doing shifting cultivation in the Atlantic Forest especially after the 1980’s due to restrictions imposed by environmental regulations, and changing livelihoods, collective activities have almost disappeared (Peroni and Hanazaki 2002). The Caiçaras have maintained a high di- versity of bitter as well as sweet manioc varieties. But Table 5 Distribution of fishing catch in households that reported it PN Ponta Negra, PS Praia do Sono, PG Praia Grande, TR Trindade, BG Barra Grande, IA Ilha do Araújo, TA Tarituba Data in percentage of households Total PN PS PG TR BG IA TA Consumed by the household 97 96 100 82 100 100 98 100 Share with relatives 75 74 79 82 90 43 71 82 Share with neighbours/friends 69 70 79 64 93 21 63 64 Sell to fish markets/middlemen 55 83 59 45 10 21 83 55 Sell to restaurants 34 48 48 36 40 0 22 36 Sell to others in the community 21 17 21 27 13 29 22 27 Other 29 22 34 9 37 7 37 27 N 159 23 29 11 30 14 41 11 Fig. 3 Food shortages during the last 12 months, according to interviewed households. Dark grey no; light grey yes. Total (n0350), PN Ponta Negra (n032); PS Praia do Sono (n040); PG Praia Grande (n044); TR Trindade (n070); BG Barra Grande (n076); IA Ilha do Araújo (n054); TA Tarituba (n032). Data in percentages Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 159 cultivating sweet varieties (rather than the bitter) has be- come more easy because they do not depend on roças and because processing is not needed (Hanazaki et al. 2006). The livelihood portfolio as a whole appears to provide flexibility and options; that is, it provides resilience (Marschke and Berkes 2006; Schwarz et al. 2011). At the time of the household livelihood surveys, food security did not appear to be a problem. But to the extent that the various components of the livelihood portfolio essential to Caiçara livelihoods (e.g., fishing and small-scale agriculture) are coming under pressure in various ways, loss of livelihood diversity will translate into loss of resilience, leaving certain groups vulnerable to food insecurity. In the coastal communities of Paraty region, small- scale fishing used to be the dominant activity with the excep- tion of the more urbanized areas of the city. However, in the sample of seven Caiçara communities we studied, nearly one- third of the households did not fish at all; among most of the rest of the households that did, fishing was not the main activity but one of a mix of livelihood activities. Only 1 % of fishing households relied exclusively on fishing; 99 % reported at least one other livelihood activity. Yet, these Caiçara communities are strongly marine- oriented. For example, in the squid (Loligo plei and L. sanpaulensis) season, November to March (Postuma and Gasalla 2010) nearly everyone (man, woman and child) takes part in squid jigging from canoes in communities such as Trindade (Robson Possidônio, pers. comm.) and Ponta Negra (Carpenter 2011). This activity is “taken for granted”, as is coastal shellfish gathering (often by children) and may be under-represented in the household survey results (Carpenter 2011). Despite these activities, relativelyfew people consid- ered themselves as “fishers”, sometimes due to a comparative perception with neighbors and relatives who really do make their major income from fishing. The unusual feature of the study area is that it is charac- terized by an economy of exchange networks, especially for fish, and diversity of livelihood activities, even though it is relatively close to the two largest urban centers of Brazil (the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro). Some of the food production goes for sale, but almost always serves direct consumption by the producing households themselves or through their exchange networks. Some assets, such as fish, and less frequently bitter manioc, banana and other fruits, can be used as indirect entitlements to generate cash to buy other things (Sen 1981). Considering that the regular Caiçara meal consists of rice, beans, manioc flour, and a source of Fig. 4 Food exchanges. Total (n0350), PN Ponta Negra (n032); PS Praia do Sono (n040); PG Praia Grande (n044); TR Trindade (n070); BG Barra Grande (n076); IA Ilha do Araújo (n054); TA Tarituba (n032). Data in percentages Table 6 Answers to the ques- tion: What do you do when there is a lack of food in your house? PN Ponta Negra, PS Praia do Sono, PG Praia Grande, TR Trindade; BG Barra Grande, IA Ilha do Araújo, TA Tarituba Data in percentages Total TR PS PN BG PG IA TA Nothing 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 Food given by neighbors or relatives 3 3 3 8 0 6 2 0 Sometimes we can buy 19 10 33 28 18 23 26 3 We can always buy 63 79 38 52 74 71 63 41 We never lack food 15 9 28 8 8 0 9 56 N 315 70 40 25 65 35 46 34 160 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 animal protein (mainly fish, but also chicken and meat) (Hanazaki and Begossi 2000; 2003; MacCord and Begossi 2006), it is clear that several food items need to be purchased, such as rice and beans, which are not produced locally. It is worth mentioning that before connecting with re- gional markets, the Caiçara meal relied on locally produced items such as fish and manioc flour, and some crops such as sweet potatoes and beans; rice was not part of their tradi- tional food until the last decades of 20th century. Thus, local food security heavily depends on external sources as well, and the means to buy from those sources. Nevertheless, subsistence practices have remained strong in these com- munities, for example, by maintaining a high diversity of manioc varieties despite the high risk of losing this genetic resource and the knowledge to manage this di- versity (Sambatti et al. 2001; Peroni and Hanazaki 2002). Livelihood activities that generate a cash income are important in the overall mix. These include various kinds of wage jobs (private and public sector jobs, construction work, day-wage labour), retirement and pension income, income from commercial activities (e.g., stores), and in- creasingly important, tourism income. This whole set of activities shows a diversity of livelihoods, which could be subdivided even further, especially when gendered special- ization is taken into account. For example, the major cate- gory of tourism-related income among the women of Ponta Negra is housekeeping, while among men it is boat trans- portation, that is, moving tourists between Laranjeiras and Ponta Negra or between Praia do Sono and Ponta Negra (Carpenter 2011); whereas in Praia Grande for example it would be boat rentals to tourists. By contrast, it seems that despite having a high proportion of fishers, Ilha do Araújo do not have as many opportunities to diversify when com- pared to other communities where fishing is also a strong option, such as Ponta Negra and Praia do Sono. Two factors may help to explain this point: first, part of this small island has become a private tourist estate, restricting access of local people; second, the rest of this small island is relatively densely populated when compared with other communities, hence there is not much land left for harvesting or shifting cultivation. Since the diversity of livelihood activities depends in part on how far the researcher chooses to subdivide categories, the actual numerical value of the diversity index by com- munity (Table 2) is not as important as the relative value. What is important, however, is the use of the diversity index to assess the diversity of livelihood portfolios by community to identify generalist/specialist communities in a compara- tive way. The diversity index helps identify and evaluate pros and cons of generalist vs. specialist strategies. It is expected that a greater generalization of activities in a given community can result in more versatile options in a dynamic environment. On the other hand, greater specialization in a few activities can result in a more refined knowledge built on these few activities. Most important, communities are not homogeneous, with some having most households involved in fishing activities, while in others this proportion is re- versed. Tourism is growing strongly in all communities and is the major source of income. In other words, even when fishing is the main economic activity in terms of the number of households involved in the activity, there is a perception in communities such as Ponta Negra that the amount of money generated by tourism is higher than by fishing. However, this is less expected in communities with fewer households involved with tourism, such as Barra Grande and Praia Grande. Some communities (Ponta Negra, Praia do Sono, Trindade) have more diverse array of activities, resulting in more flexibility considering the community as a whole (Table 4). The analysis of the diversity of livelihood activities allows us to evaluate its consequences for resilience, which is all about flexibility and options (Gunderson and Holling 2002; Berkes et al. 2003). In spite of tourism being impor- tant in some communities when compared to others, live- lihoods in places such as Ilha do Araujo may be less resilient from the point of view of flexibility: fisheries is strong, but livelihoods are not as diverse as in other communities, hence there are fewer options to explore. Here resilience thinking produces the same conclusion as sustainable livelihoods analysis (Bebbington 1999): richer the set of capitals, great- er the diversity of assets, and greater range of options and flexibility. A corollary to this argument is that the single most important natural capital is also the most important capital to conserve. In the present case, it is fisheries that provide the strongest natural asset to assure the entitlements related to food security (or conversely, to reduce the vulnerability to food insecurity). The important contribution of the small- scale fisheries to food security of coastal populations, as argued by Béné et al. (2007), is very clear in our case when we observe the proportions directly consumed by house- holds in all communities. The small-scale fishery is under pressure from competition from larger-scale trawlers and seiners, and from area closures related to protected areas along the coast and around islands (Begossi et al. 2010), a common situation with small-scale fisheries worldwide (Chuenpagdee 2011). As well, small-scale agriculture and especially bitter manioc production (which uses shifting cultivation) is under pressure from the enforcement of pro- tected areas in the last decades. Here we have to consider that protected areas can have both a positive and a negative impact on social indicators such as food security, with protected areas negatively affecting at least some groups of fishers (Mascia et al. 2010). Food exchange networks have a major role in strength- ening community cohesion because they affect the Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 161 interactions among resources and resource users (Anderies et al. 2004). Table 5 shows that only 3 % of households relied on food donations. Yet, 75 % of fishing households shared with relatives and 69 % with neighbors and friends (Table 4). Our interpretation of these findings is that food exchange isnot only about looking after the poor; a very large component of food sharing is about building commu- nity cohesion, social networks and social capital (Pretty and Ward 2001). Such sharing, in turn, contributes to household and community-level resilience because it makes it possible to deal with lean seasons and difficult times – to “cope with and recover from stresses and shocks” (Chambers and Conway 1992: 6). Overall, only about one-quarter of households reported a food shortage in the previous 12-month period. Two com- munities, Ponta Negra and Praia do Sono, may be consid- ered vulnerable because they had higher rates of food shortage, but these shortages may be temporary and due to lack road access, rather than a problem of resource shortage or exchange network failure. In this sense, is interesting to see that in Ponta Negra, the most isolated community, with a high proportion of fishing households and high livelihood diversity, has the highest incidence of food shortages but also one of the highest percentage of food received. Vulner- able households are present in every community and may be identified in terms of their response to the question of how they deal with food shortages. As much as one-fifth of all households may be vulnerable to food insecurity because they do not seem to produce enough for themselves and can “buy only sometimes” what they need. A full resilience analysis is beyond the scope of this paper, and there are many variables in addition to livelihood options to be considered. Moreover, the scale of analysis matters because processes at different scales will be differ- ent. To illustrate, at the regional level, the overall human well-being seems to be stable or increasing, even though the natural capital of the resource base seems to be declining (Begossi et al. 2010). The situation in Paraty has parallels to the paradox revealed by the results of the Millennium Ecosys- tem Assessment that indicated increasing global human well- being despite declining ecosystem services (Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010). In the Paraty region as a whole, well-being may be increasing due to greater cash incomes from tourism and wage employment, since indirect entitlements are substitut- able for direct entitlements (Sen 1981). But certain commu- nities such as Tarituba and Ilha do Araújo that have lower livelihood diversity (Tables 2 and 4) have fewer livelihood options and likely less resilience. More cash income will buy more food, as long as someone is producing that food, but it can leave a community less resilient to cope with food supply shocks, along with a loss of exchange networks that provide security. Thus, drivers having positive impacts at one level may have opposite impacts at another level, mak- ing it important to try to understand livelihoods and well- being at finer spatial scales (Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010). A higher robustness in a regional scale can be reached with better links within the household/community level and be- tween communities (Anderies et al. 2004). Conclusions The central questions in this study about livelihoods and resilience are relevant to the issue of food security which has become a policy focus in international development. The answers to the diagnostic questions we posed in the house- hold questionnaire indicate that vulnerability to food inse- curity does not affect all regions in the same way; within a region, it does not affect all communities in the same way; and within a community, it does not affect all households equally. On the other hand, at the regional level, it is not clear how people in different communities are formally or informally connected through flows of information or mate- rials, or if the networks that exist in communities are connected with other food exchange networks. Another way to understand the relation among liveli- hoods, food security and resilience at different levels of analysis is the following: at the household level, a shortage on fish catch may have a severe impact on a household that depends mostly on fishing for its livelihood. The same may be said for a crop shortage in relation to those few house- holds that depend mostly on small-scale agriculture. Never- theless, for those households with other livelihood options that generate cash income, shortages in fish catch or crop harvest may not be so disruptive. At the community level, shortage of fish catch is likely to affect the resilience of communities with lower diversity of livelihood options and high dependence on fishing, but not the resilience of other communities that either have higher diversity of livelihood options or lower diversity of livelihood option but also lower dependency on fishing. Issues of local livelihoods and vulnerability to food inse- curity can be interpreted at the community level, but there are also important differences among and within communi- ties that should be taken into account. The identification with fishing is strong in almost all communities, reflecting the historical and cultural importance of this activity, as well as its continuing contribution to local livelihoods and food security. However, small-scale fisheries cannot be seen in isolation from the diversity of activities that make up the livelihoods of coastal communities. On a regional scale, livelihoods may seem similar at a first glance, but this only hides differences within and between communities, and their vulnerability to food insecurity in the face of pressures from protected areas, large-scale fisheries, tourism 162 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 development and economic change in general. In view of rapid change in the area, livelihood data collected in these communities represents a baseline against which future live- lihood resilience and food security may be measured. Acknowledgments We thank the team who assisted in data collec- tion: L.G. Araujo, M. Giraldi, L.A. Cavechia, F.S. Bueloni, I. M. Martins, C.J. Idrobo, R.R. Freitas, L. Garuana and L. Carpenter. We acknowledge R. Possidônio and M. Giraldi for additional field obser- vations, and thank families and communities included in this study. 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Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social- Ecological Systems. Ecology and Society 9: 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/. 164 Hum Ecol (2013) 41:153–164 http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/ Livelihood Diversity, Food Security and Resilience among the Caiçara of Coastal Brazil Abstract Introduction Area and People Data Collection and Analysis Results Livelihood Diversity Food Security and Vulnerability Discussion Conclusions References
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