Vulnerability and adaptive capacity of a fishing community after Catarina hurricane

Abstract

The Catarina Hurricane hit the southern coast of Santa Catarina State in the 2004 year, causing large damage to the livelihoods of local population, specifically to the coastal areas. One of the communities most affected by the Catarina Hurricane was Ilhas, with located on the mouth of Araranguá River and is composed mainly by small-scale fishers. Seeking to understand the socio-environmental vulnerability situation to the Hurricane by Ilhas, this research had the objective to identify the factors that influence the adaptative capacity to the hurricane on community level. Focusing to understand the variables that affect the socio-environmental vulnerability, was proposed an approach focused with the interaction into the stressors and the livelihoods. We applied 10 semi-structured interviews with the small-scale fisheries and communities’ leaderships through the snowball method, in addition to a bibliographic review about the theme with documental analysis, geospatial and fiedwork in situ. The socio-environmental vulnerability situation of Ilhas to the Catarina Hurricane is associated to stressors, as free-access to the fishing resources and users conflict; economic marginalization and theft; river pollution and geographic isolation and communication. The frame of vulnerability presented compromises the adaptive capacity of the communities to respond to the adversities resulting from extreme events. Despite this, the capacity of the communities to make collective decisions after the disaster shows as important mechanism to been explored by the public power, university and NGOs, in the development of emergency plans and of participative prevention. The case of the Catarina Hurricane reinforces the relevance of the social cohesion as an attribute key for increasing adaptive capacity of the fisheries small-scale communities vulnerable to the extreme weather events.