Between the sea and the land: the livelihood of estuarine people in southeastern Brazil

the central focus of this study is to characterize and compare the livelihood strategies of two coastal communities from the estuarine region of ribeira valley (s？o paulo state, southeastern brazil), analyzing the interplay among four economic activities: small-scale agriculture, fishing, tourism-related jobs, and extraction of non-timber vegetal resources. the local people of these communities are mostly cai？ara, the native inhabitants of southeastern brazilian coast, in an atlantic forest area. the miscegenation of amerindians, european colonizers, and african brazilians gave rise to the cai？ara people, whose subsistence was originally based on small-scale itinerant agriculture, small-scale fishery, and some extraction of forest products. their livelihoods activities changed through time: agricultural practices were gradually abandoned, while fishing grew in importance. recently, tourism-related jobs and the extraction of non-timber vegetal resources acquired a key role in the estuarine cai？ara livelihood. after an historical overview, we focus our analysis on the local factors and external pressures affecting the combination of these activities.