The saddest day in Santarém - Amazônia Real

The relentless heat of global warming is not only altering the natural cycles of drought and rain, but is also shattering the very existence of the Amazon’s riverine communities. Fishing, the lifeblood and sustenance of the people, has become an unprecedented challenge in the midst of extreme drought. Last time, it was barely enough for families to survive. The drought has brought not only a shortage of fish for those who make a living from selling them, but also hunger and thirst, which have been revealed in the hundreds of communities of the Lower Tapajós, around Santarém, in Pará. In Lago Grande, the fishermen fear for the future, for the repetition of climatic events such as the one in 2023 and for seeing desolate scenes such as a river covered in dead animals.

Por Isabelle Maciel e Priscila Tapajowara (Fotos)

Santarém (PA) – “Will they ever meet a pirarucu (one of the largest freshwater fish in South America), a surubim (a type of South American catfish)?” asks Maria Auxiliadora Batista, a fisherwoman for more than 15 years and mother of two daughters, afraid to imagine the worst. A leader in the Uruari community, especially in the association of the Lago Grande Agro-Extractivist Settlement Project (PAE), she reflects on what could happen to thousands of fishermen and their families in the face of an uncertain scenario. Global warming is not just drying up rivers or overfilling them, but unbalancing the entire ecosystem of the floodplain region, where fishing takes place. The drought and flood seasons no longer occur as they did in previous years, and those who make a living from fishing have noticed that some species no longer follow the flow of the piracema.

Looking at the Lago Grande river, in Santarém (PA), Maria Auxiliadora doesn’t hide her concern when she realizes that the last drought was extremely serious, but the situation only seems to get worse every year. “Today we’re going through this and it’s already difficult, but what about the future? The future of the children, will they still see fish? Because of what’s happening, the tendency is for it to become extinct,” she exclaimed in despair. In his memory and that of more than 500 families in the Uruari community, it will be impossible to forget November 15th, a national holiday that refers to the Proclamation of the Republic, but which in the Lower Tapajós will be remembered as the day of the great fish die-off.

That day, a group of people were preparing to toast piracuí, a “flour” made from dried and crushed salted fish, a typical Amazonian dish. The drought had already lowered the level of the rivers and affected the catching of fish, but it was important not to stop. Life was going on as normal, when suddenly one of the villagers came back from the river frightened. “Look, there won’t be any more piracuí, because all the fish have died.” That was the phrase he used to announce what he had witnessed in the Lago Grande do Curuai river.

The community members got scared and went to the site to check out the situation. The extremely sad scene was frightening: a carpet of dead fish covered the river. The community’s first reaction was despair – after all, fishing is the community’s main source of income. The feeling of not knowing what to do took hold of those who were there amid so many dead fish, and in an attempt to call for help, a video was recorded to show the situation as a cry for help.

Young Ádrinne Silva Batista, a resident of the Uruari São Pedro community, took the initiative to record the “unbelievable” scene, as she told Amazônia Real. “When we got there (to Lago Grande), we were scared, because I’m 20 years old and I’d never seen anything like that, a lot of dead fish,” she said. “There were hake, lots of hake, small ones, bigger ones, piranha (a carnivorous fish known for its sharp teeth), acarí (a type of armored catfish), tucunaré (a popular sport fish in the Amazon region, also known as peacock bass), rays.”

Isolated communities

Amerildo in the canoe looking at the lake that has dried up in the São Pedro do Uruari community in Santarém (Photo: Priscila Tapajowara/ Amazônia Real)

“That day was very sad for our community and others in the region,” says Amerildo de Souza Rodrigues, president of the residents’ association. Born and raised in the Lago Grande region, married and the father of 6 children, the 51-year-old fisherman knew that the environmental tragedy was the harbinger of a much greater impact. In this region of PAE Lago Grande, there are 144 communities, home to 35,000 people, all of whom have been affected by the drought – the worst in 28 years.

“For those of us who depend on fish for food and income, it was a huge shock. Many of us had never witnessed anything like this before,” says Amerildo.

Two weeks later, on November 25, Amerildo took the Amazônia Real news agency to the site of the fish kill and also to talk to river dwellers affected by global warming. To get to the community of Uruari, you can take a ferry across the river to the port in the Arapixuna region, which can be reached via the TransLago highway. The drive from the port to the Uruari community takes about an hour.

The community of Uruari is very close to the banks of the Lago Grande do Curuai river. You only have to walk a few meters from Amerildo’s house to reach the riverbank, where you can see the paddleboats stopped due to the lack of fishing activity. There was even a small channel, but even the most experienced fishermen and locals had a hard time navigating it. On the day of the visit, there was no longer a river in front of Uruari, just mud. On the way, fish, rays and an alligator were spotted. All of them dead. Others were trying to survive the extreme drought, competing for the little oxygen in the water. There were many boats stranded, waiting for the river to fill up again.

Adrinne Silva Batista, who filmed the images of the dead fish, recalls that at around 9 a.m. on that November 15, she came across a river with a very low level, the waters were hotter than normal and there was pollution as far as the eye could see. “It was a very smoky day and all of this is the impact of the fires. Not only the drought, not only the dead fish, but also the smoke is something I’ve never seen before.”

Catastrophic scenario

Casas da Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari. em Santarém no Pará (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Casas da Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari. em Santarém no Pará (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Casas da Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari. em Santarém no Pará (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Retrato do pescador na comunidade de São Pedro do Uruari, em Santarém (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Seca do Lago Grande vista pela comunidade de São Pedro do Uruari, em Santarém (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Jovem pilotando bajara no lago grande, comunidade de São Pedro do Uruari (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real)
Cbarco em frente a comunidade São Pedro do Uruari, em Santarém no Pará (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari, em Santarém no Pará vista do rio (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Peixe morto por falta de oxigênio na água Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Arraia morta encontrada no lago. Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari. Santarém-PA. (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real)
Peixe piranha está morrendo por conta da seca. Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari. (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Pescado pelas mãos do Amerildo morre por conta da seca do rio (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/Amazônia Real).
Peixe piranha morre por conta da seca. Comunidade São Pedro do Uruari (Foto: Priscila Tapajowara/ Amazônia Real).

The Lower Tapajós region saw countless communities become isolated during the great drought. What their fishermen have noticed is that their routine has changed dramatically. “When it’s too full, it’s hard to catch fish and when it’s too dry, access to get the fish is also very difficult,” says a fisherman from Tapará, in the Santana community, in a statement to the technical team from the Society for Research and Protection of the Environment (Sapopema) with the support of the Lower Amazon Fishermen’s Movement (Mopebam) and the Z-20 Fishermen’s Colony.

The valuable survey collected the opinions of coordinators of community bases in the regions of Arapixuna, Aritapera, Ituqui, Urucurituba, Tapará, Maicá, Lago Grande, Arapiuns, Tapajós and Santarém, in Pará, which represent 33,508 affiliated fishermen. Their experience of the Amazon has led them to predict a catastrophic scenario: “As fishermen, we’ve experienced directly that the habitat of the fish, where they take refuge, is already beginning to feel the impact of the drought. They go to other places and with that, because of deforestation, major erosion begins, the soil becomes infertile, all this goes into the headwaters of the rivers, and becomes uninhabitable for the fish,” describes the coordinator of the São José do Arapixuna community.

The Amazon’s riverside communities live off the extraction of natural resources. Fish from the floodplain communities are plentiful and have been supplying the local, regional and state markets for decades. Last year, artisanal fishing suffered from the biggest drought in the Amazon region, impacting not only trade, but even subsistence.

When the rivers dried up, the riverside dwellers were forced to buy food that was out of keeping with their eating habits, which had immediate consequences. “We’re having to buy chicken. Meat is hard to come by, and we’re also buying more canned goods like sardines and sausages. A lot of people aren’t used to eating these things, they’re bad for the gut,” explains Amerildo.

With poor health care, the community didn’t know if the cases of people suffering from vomiting, diarrhea and other intestinal infections were due to the poor quality of the water or to the change in diet. Many reported skin diseases, such as itching caused by the more exposed grass, as in the Santa Terezinha community in Aritapera. This account of how the Amazonian population had to look for alternative food exposes the direct impact of climate change on traditional customs.

“So far nothing”

When we visited, the fishermen said they felt abandoned. “The only help we get is from God, who is not letting us go hungry or thirsty. But we haven’t received anything from the municipal, state or federal governments, or organizations. The government promised a benefit of 2,600 reais for each fisherman, but so far nothing,” adds the president of the Lago Grande residents’ association.

_{“We’re going through a lot of suffering here, and we need the responsible bodies to look at this, so that someone doesn’t go hungry,” adds Maria Auxiliadora.}

The coordinator of the Piracaoera de Baixo community, in Urucurituba, said that even agriculture, which could be an option to cope with the drought, was suffering: “The heat is affecting our crops, the land is weak. Too much heat is making our production very weak”.

The Mopebam association produced a more detailed survey of 74 communities around the city of Santarém, representing around 6,250 families. Fishing (22.2%) was the biggest difficulty faced, followed by problems in getting enough to eat (20.5%). But a third point exacerbated a historic problem: access to water (16.7%). The Northern region has the worst sanitation in Brazil, with less than 60% of households connected to a water distribution network. Santarém has the 4th worst sanitation index in Brazil, according to the Trata Brasil Institute. “There is an urgent need to include riverside communities in basic public policies, such as access to water and energy, as the populations of these places are extremely impacted by the consequences of climate change,” says the study Panorama da Seca em Santarém, in the Lower Amazon, Pará.

Researchers Flávia Costa, from the National Institute for Amazonian Research, and José Marengo, from Cemaden, in their Declaration on the Amazon Drought at the beginning of December, project that the El Niño climate phenomenon will continue to be present in the first few months of this year, and with the Tropical North Atlantic warmer, “it is very likely that the rainy season in the Amazon will be weaker than normal and river levels will be lower than normal”. For them, last year’s drought has the potential to represent a “new normal” if measures are not taken to curb climate change.

According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA), the climate crisis was primarily responsible for the severity of the drought in the Amazon, and that the El Niño phenomenon exacerbated the effects. “The strong drought trend was almost entirely due to rising global temperatures, so the severity of the drought currently being experienced is largely driven by climate change,” said the organization. Global warming, which has radically altered the natural cycles of the Amazon, makes communities fear for the future of new generations. It is impossible to predict what is to come. “I always tell my children to please study,” confides Amerildo. “Fishing today is no longer for sale, there’s no way to work with fish and survive on it, just subsist. That’s why I tell them to study, so they don’t go through the same situation we’re going through today. “Ana Neide Gomes, a 47-year-old family farmer, is also very worried about the future. Born and raised in Uruari, she works as a housewife and has six children. Her concern is not only for her family, but also for the new generations. “Faced with this whole situation I keep asking God for my grandchildren and children, I keep thinking that if it continues like this we won’t be able to survive,” she says.

See the video:

The text was translated by Deepl. Original version, in portuguese, is here.

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Citações

“We're going through this today and it's hard enough, but what about the future? The future of the children, will they still see fish? From what is happening, the trend is for it to become extinct,” says Maria Auxiliadora Batista.

Links:

https://amazoniareal.com.br/cheia-e-seca-na-amazonia/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/mortandade-de-peixes/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/seca-de-2023/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracu%C3%AD

https://www.gov.br/cemaden/pt-br/assuntos/noticias-cemaden/secas-sem-precedentes-na-bacia-amazonica-sao-apontadas-pelo-observatorio-global-da-secas/231207AMAZONDROUGHTSTATEMENT_portugues3.pdf/view

https://tratabrasil.org.br/a-vida-sem-saneamento-para-quem-falta-e-onde-mora-essa-populacao/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/seca-no-amazonas-deixa-cidades-isoladas-e-com-escassez-de-alimento/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/especiais/puraquequara/

https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/climate-change-not-el-nino-main-driver-of-exceptional-drought-in-highly-vulnerable-amazon-river-basin/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/ciencia-explica-seca-historica/

https://amazoniareal.com.br/incra-gera-conflito-ao-pressionar-titulacao-de-lotes-individuais-no-lago-grande-em-santarem/

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