{"id":17802,"date":"2014-09-30T10:09:45","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T13:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=17802"},"modified":"2014-10-02T08:10:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-02T11:10:04","slug":"the-peak-and-decline-of-fishing-in-caju","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=17802","title":{"rendered":"The Peak and Decline of Fishing in Caju"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the original by Clarisse Werneck, Daniela Pereira and Ricardo Costa\u00a0in Portuguese, published in\u00a0Viva Favela, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Whoever looks at the small\u00a0dozen boats moored at the beach of Caju<\/a>, amongst the sea of rubbish and mud, will find it difficult to imagine that this place prospered in the 60s and 70s as the main fishing colony\u00a0of Rio de Janeiro. The decadence of the current\u00a0settlements Z-12 and Z-5 is a result of various factors. Among them the rivalry of industrial fishing, the pollution of the Guanabara Bay<\/a> and the industrialization of the area. However, in the memories of its veterans, tales of a period when fish were\u00a0abundant and the sea crystal clear live on. The rare\u00a0remaining active fishermen, now in their\u00a0third\u00a0or\u00a0fourth\u00a0generation, also witnessed the rapid impoverishment of the region as the city established the port area.<\/p>\n

Claudio Luiz Marques, 57, is one of them. Known as \u201cBaixinho,\u201d he has worked for more than 40 years as a fisherman in Caju. In the heyday of the colony, he would catch between 100 and 200 kilos of fish from each trip out. Today, Claudio rents his boat out for recreational fishing. \u201cIf fishing had worked out I would have taught everything I know to my son. But there is no future in fishing. I don\u2019t want my son in this profession,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Claudio believes the closing down of the fish market in Pra\u00e7a XV in the 90s is the reason for the failure of traditional fishing. In the old market, each fisherman sold his fish whereas today he offloads his goods in Ceasa (a central deposit for resale) or in the fish market of S\u00e3o Pedro in Niter\u00f3i, into the hands of middlemen. \u201cI have to pay for the journey, the refrigeration, pay the boat staff, all the debts. With a big boat, it allows you to fish many tons. But with a small or medium-sized boat you don\u2019t earn anything,\u201d explains Claudio. \u201cWe used to have the life of kings. Today, one kilo of sardines isn\u2019t even worth R$1! Who is going to stay out at sea two, three days to earn 80 cents for a kilo of fish?”<\/p>\n

The sea is not for fish<\/h3>\n

Environmental degradation is, however, the main cause for the decline\u00a0of the profession. \u201cThis rubbish which you see piled up in the colony\u00a0comes from the canals<\/a> of Cunha and Jacar\u00e9, which flow into the bay,\u201d says Gilberto Gouveia Monteiro, a mechanic who works on maintenance of the boats. Gilberto is part of the small group of Caju residents who, in spite of the difficulties, manage to make a living from fishing. They still practice traditional fishing in the area known as Varal in Quinta do Caju–which today is part of the Z-5 community–with about\u00a0three small boats (for two people or a fisherman and his helper) and two mid-sized boats (which could hold around 15 workers).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

According to the mechanic, another problem which plagues the community is mud. When the sea level drops, it stops the boats from leaving and arriving. The phenomenon started with the building of industries and dockyards in the surrounding area. The dredging of access canals to the bay to make them deeper allowing the navigation of deep draft boats, left mud deposits forming real underground ravines. The mud gets carried into the colony\u00a0by the tide.<\/p>\n

Gilberto went as far as researching what would be necessary for a revitalization of the colony. \u201cWho knew it here in the past and sees it today would cry,\u201d he laments. According to him, there are condemned structures that need to be restored urgently, like a concrete ramp with exposed ironwork that is likely to collapse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese structures present a risk to the lives of the fishermen who pass over it,\u201d he warns.<\/p>\n

From fishing town to industrial town<\/h3>\n

The fishing colony of Caju was born at the end of the 19th century, when families from P\u00f3voa do Varzim in Portugal migrated to make their fortune in Brazil. In the streets of the neighborhood\u00a0some pine wood houses, today crumbling, are remnants of this heritage. Over the years, the colony prospered until becoming, in the mid-50s and 60s, the largest of the city. It was also a no less important trading center for fish, an activity which ended with the creation the fish market in Pra\u00e7a XV by SUDEPE (the Superintendent for the Development of Fishing) in the 30s.<\/p>\n

In the 80s, rapid industrialization of the region resulted in\u00a0unchecked\u00a0growth of its\u00a0population. The sleepy fishing colony\u00a0of Caju became the area with the highest concentration of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, currently accounting for eight. According to data from the 2010 census, 79% of the area’s\u00a0population (almost 16,000 people) lives in favelas. The numbers also reveal that in the space of 10 years, from the year 2000 to 2010, the population of Caju grew at more than double the average rate for the city (16% against 7%).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Quinta do Caju, which had 52,000 square meters\u00a0dedicated to fishing, lost 80% of its area over the course of 30 years when they installed the Electronic Aviation Materials Park (PAME RJ) and the biggest dockyard in the country, the Ishikawajima (or Ishibras). \u201cIn the past, we had more than 100 boats fishing here. We had a shop for nets, a clinic, a line to hang up the nets. Fishermen were happy. Today we can barely work,\u201d Gilberto says.<\/p>\n

Two ecological disasters instigated\u00a0the decline of the profession: the creation of the Duque de Caxias landfill site<\/a>, which destroyed the mangrove area\u2013the main marine fauna nursery of the bay–and the leakage of the Petrobras pipeline in 2000<\/a>, recorded as one of the biggest environmental accidents of the country. \u201cWhen I began to fish, the water at the Rio-Niteroi bridge was clean and crystal clear,\u201d reminisces a friend of Claudio who doesn\u2019t wish to be identified. He remembers the accident well, which directly impacted the profession, \u201cThe riverbed was completely worthless, there was a complete wipeout of birds as well as fish,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The ex-fisherman, who now earns a living as a doorman, is proof of the economic importance the activity had in the region, \u201cThe sea was my way of life. I got married with the money I earned fishing. I raised and married my children. They are educated. The house I have today, I built with the money I earned on the boats. So, the sea means a lot to me!\u2019 he reveals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the original by Clarisse Werneck, Daniela Pereira and Ricardo Costa\u00a0in Portuguese, published in\u00a0Viva Favela, click\u00a0here. Whoever looks at the small\u00a0dozen boats moored at the beach of Caju, amongst the sea of rubbish and mud, […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":17804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1268,452,1330],"tags":[801,1261,504,428,474,267,531,188,526,530,148,471],"writer":[1435,1436,1437],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-favelaculture","8":"category-rio20","9":"category-translation","10":"tag-caju","11":"tag-central-rio","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-employment","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-fishing-colony","16":"tag-guanabara-bay","17":"tag-history","18":"tag-jardim-gramacho","19":"tag-pollution","20":"tag-port-region","21":"tag-sustainability","22":"writer-clarisse-werneck","23":"writer-daniela-pereira","24":"writer-ricardo-costa","25":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=17802"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=17802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}