Adapting to Environmental Change Through the Lens of Social Wellbeing: Improvements and Trade-Offs Associated with a Small-Scale Fishery on the Atlantic Forest Coast of Brazil

Abstract

Small-scale coastal communities around the globe are dealing with environmental change associated with the fisheries crisis, integration with global markets and climate change. Understanding how coastal people adapt to these challenges is not only a theoretical but also a practical concern that relates to the continuity of ways of life associated with small-scale fishing practice and the sustainability of the natural resource base on which they depend. In this chapter, I examine how people from the small coastal community of Ponta Negra, located in the Juatinga Ecological Reserve on the Atlantic Forest Coast of Brazil, have experienced and responded to environmental change in their recent history. To do so, I employ the social wellbeing framework that provides a multidimensional lens to assess how people’s current situations, as well as their desires and aspirations, shape and have been shaped by their relations with their environment. Melhorar (to improve), a common narrative, allows us to reflect upon how people in Ponta Negra negotiate the social, cultural and other trade-offs associated with livelihood transitions that reduce local reliance on the natural resource base and increase dependence on wage labour, out-migration and the growing regional tourism economy. The case of Ponta Negra highlights the challenges and opportunities small-scale fishers face in a changing world.