“Fishermen are being kept away from the sea and beaches”

Graduated from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, he dedicates his doctoral research to the historical origins of “patterns of subalternity” that define the relationship between fishing collectives and the state institutions responsible for managing the activity.

He has been investigating and documenting artisanal fishing in Cape Verde for some years. What portrait do you give of this sector?

At the moment, we have data made available by the government, showing that there are 97 landing points for artisanal fishing, across the entire size of the archipelago. We were talking about 75 disembarkation points in the 1980s, according to government data from that time. So, from that perspective, we can see that fishing has increased. For example, we have the data that, in Tarrafal de Santiago, in 1978, there were 30 boats, today we have 100. In the broader picture, fishing has increased its importance, I think mainly due to the fact that it is an art, mainly hand-line fishing in an open-mouth boat, which ensures that the fish circulates among the country’s working class. The price of fish has increased a lot in recent decades, but in artisanal fishing techniques the first fish is to eat at home, the other is to sell. This circulation among fishing families, among friends, in neighborhoods, among the country’s popular classes, is fundamental.

I understand Cape Verdean artisanal fishing as a very important tool, not only for the issue of food security, but as a way of protecting hand-line fishing in open-mouth boats, the way it emerged in Cape Verde, which is also a very interesting way of protecting the environment.

The primary sector is often seen as one of the ‘poor relatives’ of the national economy, despite having undervalued potential. This vision also includes, let’s say, the marginalization of fishermen…

To understand this issue properly, we have to go to History, because there is a very old history of artisanal fishermen being on the margins of society. I believe this comes from the time of the Portuguese, from the tuna canning factories. When we analyzed the documents written in the newspapers at the time, about local fishing, there was already a very disqualifying perspective. In 1985, at the National Fisheries Meeting, it was the first time that we found in historical documentation, for example, that 8% of the population lived from fishing. Then we started seeing reports on Tribunein Voice of the People, about fishing in Gamboa, about fishing in Porto Mosquito. It’s not that fishing didn’t exist until that moment. It did not exist for those who administered the islands. Independence gave a very positive impulse, in the sense of ‘visibility’ and an attempt to integrate communities into the development programs that were created. However, this initial impulse resulted, from my perspective, in important failures. Not in fishing, which continued to grow and increase in importance, but in the relationship that continued to be established between state institutions and fishermen, with too technocratic management. It is not a peculiarity of Cape Verde, national states work that way. The State has an official way of looking at social phenomena. Then, fisheries began to be seen from the perspective of experts, because the intention was, in fact, to integrate communities in the best possible way into the social fabric of the islands. However, in this process, traditional knowledge was left behind. I believe that state management is necessary that incorporates a series of dimensions of maritime culture, artisanal-maritime culture, which is a fundamental part of the Cape Verdean peasant universe. I believe that the government has an extremely important asset in its hands and that it is undervalued, also in this sense. We took the National Fisheries Management Plan, and it is a plan that has a lot of technique and a lot of science there…

But don’t you have the fishermen’s perspective?

The ‘fishermen’s perspective’, since Portuguese times, is always riddled with errors. For example, I think it is important to recognize that many of the beaches are related to the fishing territory, not only with work, but with the leisure of fishermen. They are work areas, but they are also leisure areas. Artisanal fishing, in addition to ensuring that fish circulates among the country’s popular classes, is also an activity that ensures that the popular classes occupy beach spaces, which are increasingly coveted by tourist businesses.

Fishermen are being turned away. From the sea, with a series of industrial strategies. The beaches, occupied by large tourist developments.

There is a lot of prejudice against fishermen. ‘Fishermen drink a lot’, ‘they have lots of children’, ‘they don’t know how to manage money’. We cannot generalize. There are many who don’t drink, many who have a very well organized financial life, many who greatly value maritime safety. There is no national policy that is concerned, for example, with the protection of bays and nearby regions, where fishermen fish and operate. There is no valorization policy, in fact. There is a serious problem with fishermen’s associations. All fishing communities have an association, which fishermen do not trust, because they have been robbed in the past, because there was poor management.

Who are the artisanal fishermen in the larger structure of Cape Verdean society?

Commander Pedro Pires talks about this at the National Fisheries Meeting, in 1985, that fishermen are on the lowest rung of society. I think they continue, even though some probably earn more than you and me. Therefore, it is important that communities and associations function. An artisanal fisherman with 40 years of experience at sea… Brazilian anthropology has given him the title of doctor, a recognized doctor. These people must be heard in the policy development equation.

It is necessary to involve people…

Create the tools so that management can be carried out and shared. It would be extremely important for there to be national meetings and for fishermen to come from all the islands. They also have the right to participate in politics. I understand the country’s difficulties, which are many and very important, now I think fishermen need to feel that they are participating in something. I once heard from a teacher that fishing gives us more than we can give back. In fact, how many children in this country eat only hand-line fishing in a boat with their mouths open? A fisherman father, a fishmonger mother… The Cape Verdean peasant world managed to build a fishery that is extremely important for the country and that could be mobilized at an international level.

Tell me a little about the research you are developing…

In the thesis, I work with a lot of historical documentation, I analyze all the documentation from the single party period, which created structures to be able to deal with fishing, because until then fishing did not exist for the Portuguese, it was not interesting, it was not significant. So, I discuss fronts of appropriation of this wealth, which is Cape Verdean wealth. First, this peasant appropriation, which gives rise to 97 artisanal fishing landing points, and which makes up the peasant universe based on an ecological fishing technique. Then, I discuss the overlapping of international interests in this fishery. How is this dispute configured today, how are fishing agreements the materialization of exports that began in the 1930s. The independent government was unable to produce a fishing industry capable of carrying out this exploitation and justifies (the agreements) claiming that the sea is underexploited. However, if we consider the perspective of artisanal fishermen, this is not quite the case. With the publication of the FITI report, we can see that landing data for national and foreign fishing are not public. In fact, what is taking place is a scenario of dispute over fish that has, at the base of peasant society, the representation of fishermen, who try to convince Cape Verdean society that it is necessary to review priorities in relation to this export, because the current situation is complicated. There is no national policy to protect artisanal fishermen, an effective policy…

Fishermen complain about the scarcity of fish in the seas…

And there is a controversy regarding this, because the government’s attitude, currently, is to discuss the decline of fish from the perspective of climate change. There is, in fact, an influence, it is not possible to deny that climate change is influencing the decline in fish, but it is not possible, based on the anthropology of fishing and maritime anthropology, to neglect the fact that, anywhere there was industrial fishing, the fish decreased. It happened with Senegal, for example, and there is a serious problem along the entire West African coast, due to Asian and European fishing in those seas. It’s not just the Europeans and, in addition to the agreements, there is pirate fishing.

Text originally published in the printed edition of Expresso das Ilhas nº 1195 of October 23, 2024.