Socio-economic profile and environmental perception of fishers of Lagoa do Apodi, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: Pinto Filho, Jorge Luís de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Nobre, Samilly Brito, Neto da Silva, Manoel Mariano
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Interações (Campo Grande. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://interacoes.ucdb.br/interacoes/article/view/2425
• topic: Traditional fishing activities; small-scale fishing and local development; socio-economic and environmental conflicts; atividades pesqueiras tradicionais; pesca artesanal e desenvolvimento local; conflitos socioeconômicos e ambientais; actividades de pesca artesanal; pesca artesanal y el desarrollo local; conflictos socioeconómicos y ambientales

Fishing is one of the main activities developed to ensure food, contributing to its development. However, currently has faced difficulties − especially the small-scale fishing, which uses low-technology −, in addition to the greed of large fishing corporations. The present work aims to describe the small-scale fishing in the Lagoa do Apodi, RN, through the description of the socio-economic profile and environmental perception of fishers. As a methodological procedure, we performed a literature review; preparation of semi-structured questionnaire, covering aspects of socio-economic profile and environmental perception, applied to 52 fishers, following the random sampling process; and processing of data with Microsoft Excel Software 2013. We observed that the fishers present low income and education; however, these factors did not influence on environmental perception of individuals. The positive impacts of fishing activity in the lagoon are related to income generation, job creation, and food production. We evidenced that the fishers are aware of the negative impacts arising from the activity, such as over-fishing, which leads to scarcity of fish and even to changing water quality. The main conflicts to fishers are relating to predatory fishing, land dispute between fishers and farmers, and with urbanization process with sewage dumping. With the results obtained, we detected an absence of public policies that may contribute to the promotion of small-scale fishing geared to local development.