In Brazil’s trendiest destination, small fishers struggle to survive

Adnir Ramos, 65, remembers the days of his youth when fish were abundant. His eyes turn nostalgic and distant as he thinks back.

Ramos started fishing when he was six – when he caught his first crab right in front of his house, in the canal of Barra da Lagoa, a traditional fishing community in Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil.

The eldest of 11 siblings, he soon began working professionally to help support his family.

“I lived in a time of great abundance – it was indescribable,” Ramos recalls. “But since the 1980s, we no longer have even a quarter of the tainha [a traditional fish species in the city] that we used to. Suddenly, the diversity of fish in the water was gone.”

In Brazil, artisanal fishing is an ancestral practice that has been passed down through generations. But in Florianópolis, Latin America’s most widely-searched tourist destination this summer, it’s increasingly under threat from both mass tourism and the climate crisis.

Ramos, who retired from fishing in 2012, says that the growth of tourism and gentrification have transformed the island’s east coast.

Some fishers have invested in rental properties for the summer season or take on informal jobs during the fishing off-season, when they also receive benefits from the government.

“Nowadays, no one wants to fish anymore,” he says. “They want to own a restaurant and a boat to take tourists out. Many fishers use fishing only to supplement their income.”

Nevertheless, Ramos believes fishers are still unaware of their environmental impact.

“But not all is lost,” he says. “We can still correct many mistakes.”

Fishing quotas turn political

The most common fish in Florianópolis is the Lebranche mullet (Mugil liza), known locally as tainha. This species has become a symbol of the city, and its fishing is a long-standing tradition that celebrates the city’s connection with the sea.

But the Lebranche mullet is now severely overfished. Starting this year, the federal government is imposing catch quotas on artisanal fishers to allow stocks to generate. While abundant across the south Atlantic, local stocks in southern Brazil could be facing collapse.

Fishing quotas are common in many parts of the world, most notably in the EU, where each member state is allocated an annual quota under the common fisheries policy.

Many fishers are unhappy with the quotas, which they say threatens an already precarious occupation.

“They are limiting my ability to work, and all we want is to work,” says Leandra Felício Machado, a fisher and director of the Z-11 Fishers’ Colony, which represents fishers in Florianópolis.

“Our biggest difficulty in artisanal fishing is politics. Today, any animal is valued more than the fisher.”

Machado explains that it’s already difficult for fishers to make ends meet, given the high costs of operating and maintaining their boats.

“Some days, you end up paying to fish,” she says. “Boat maintenance is very expensive.”

Ivo da Silva, president of the Federation of Artisanal Fishers of Santa Catarina (FEPESC), questions the data used by the federal government to justify its decision.

“We want a study to convince us,” he says. “There isn’t a single research vessel in Santa Catarina today, so it’s hard to accept quotas when we know we’re on the right path.”

He also believes traditional fishing methods deserve more recognition. For instance, the arrasto de praia (beach seine) fishing technique is rooted in Indigenous fishing practices.

Fishers cast a net into the sea and pull it back with the help of 20 to 60 people, attracting many tourists during the peak fishing season, which runs between May and July.

“The whole community joins in and leaves with a fish,” Silva explains. 

This method is now also subject to a catch quota of 1,100 tonnes, whereas FEPESC had requested a minimum of 1,200 tonnes.

Is the quota system helping fish species recover?

The federal government, for its part, argues that these fishing quotas were unavoidable and that they were only imposed following a participatory process.

“Quotas are a harsh measure; we’re imposing them regrettably, but also responsibly,” says Adayse Bossolani da Guarda, general coordinator of coastal and marine participatory management at the Secretariat of Artisanal Fishing, which is linked to the Ministry of Fisheries.

She points out that other species, such as lobster and tuna, are already subject to catch quotas in other regions of Brazil to help replenish stocks. These are temporary measures that can hopefully be lifted once stocks recover.

Guarda emphasizes that the quota was not imposed arbitrarily, as discussions had been ongoing since 2015, and that overfishing by commercial fishers is largely to blame.

“But artisanal fishing is also catching more than the species can regenerate,” she says. “The entire methodology used takes into account historical data and stock projections for the species.”

Roberto Wahrlich, an oceanographer and professor at the University of Vale do Itajaí (Univali), coordinates the Fishing Activity Monitoring Project in the state of Santa Catarina, which supports the federal government by tracking the amount of fish caught in the state.

“It takes sensitivity to manage fishing,” he says. “It’s a renewable natural resource, but to remain renewable, it must be used wisely.”

Wahrlich adds that while fishers are catching roughly the same amount of fish each year, most commercial species are currently overfished.

A visible effect of the climate crisis in Florianópolis is a decline in cold-water species, which are moving to other regions, while warm-water species such as shrimp and corvina have become more prevalent.

“The fish aren’t dying – they’re relocating,” he explains.

For Adayse, changes in species behavior are already on the federal government’s radar. “In a few years, we will have to reassess the periods when fishing is restricted,” she says.

Tourism has yet to benefit artisanal fishers

Florianópolis is one of Brazil’s most popular tourist destinations. With 530,000 inhabitants, it received an estimated 2 million tourists this summer – and this massive influx is affecting artisanal fishing.

“My fishing spot is near the natural pools in Barra da Lagoa, which are full of tourists,” says Machado. “If the tourists jump into the water, they scare the fish away.”

Fishers have also run into issues with surfers and other water sports enthusiasts, says Claudinei José Lopes, president of the Beach Seine Fishers Association of Santa Catarina and director of fisheries and maritime affairs of the Florianópolis Subsecretariat of Fisheries.

“Today, we have learned to coexist peacefully with surfers and kite surfers after many meetings and discussions,” he says.

A side effect of mass tourism has been real estate speculation. Developers are keen to take over the beachfront spaces where fishers have traditionally built their ranchos – small wooden shacks to store fishing gear that are typically taken down at the end of each fishing season.

In response, fishers are demanding financial help from the local government to build permanent ranchos that won’t be lost to gentrification.

Fishers also want permanent fish markets to be built so they can sell their catch themselves rather than relying on intermediaries. 

However, there is no official municipal data on artisanal fishing harvests to support their demands. The only available data is from Wahrlich’s study, which many artisanal fishers have contested.

“We want to show that Florianópolis doesn’t live solely off tourism,” says Lopes.

Meanwhile, some fishers have found informal side jobs in the tourism industry.

“We still have several families here on the island who live exclusively from fishing, but when summer comes, they earn money through transport services or by taking tourists on boat trips,” Lopes explains.

One of the most visible effects of increasing tourism is the displacement of fishers from their traditional territories.

“Fishers who persist in the activity face increasing pressure to share the sea with tourist boats,” says Wahrlich. “Tourism arrives without considering the fishers because our tourism is unplanned.”

He believes fishers should have their fishing territories recognized. “Everything that happens in the ranchos should be subject to evaluation.”

Silva, from FEPESC, believes the local government can do more to balance the competing demands of tourism and fishing.

He argues that the city should preserve its fishing heritage to provide a more authentic experience for visitors, who flock to Florianópolis from all over Brazil and even as far as Europe.

“We advocate for tourism and fishing to go hand in hand,” he explains. “To achieve this, we want to promote the preservation of fishing culture and traditional practices.”

Unfortunately, those practices are already changing with the landscape. Silva says many fishers used to predict the fishing season based on nature.

“You could tell if the season would be good by looking at whether the hawthorn trees were blooming. But where are the hawthorn trees now? It’s all skyscrapers!”