04/23/2024 – 18:37
Caiçara communities on the north coast of São Paulo have mobilized against a city hall project that aims to remove traditional fishermen from Araçá Bay, in São Sebastião. The proposal is to expropriate the houses where they live and transfer the residents to another location. “We are the 6th generation of a family that has always made a living from fishing. Leaving here is like dying”, says Caiçara Humberto de Almeida, one of the community’s fishermen.
The mayor of São Sebastião, Felipe Augusto (PSDB), told the Estadão that the occupation is irregular and the houses have invaded the mangrove, a protected biome. “Traditional fishermen are an absolute minority. These are houses that house businesses, including a chemical toilet washer. They are polluting with sewage and destroying the mangroves,” he said.
In March, the city hall published decrees in the municipality's Official Gazette declaring 16 properties in the Varadouro neighborhood, where the community lives, to be of public utility, for the purposes of friendly or judicial expropriation.
The city hall's justification is that the expropriations are necessary for the “requalification of the urbanization of the Araçá seafront and the environmental preservation of its mangrove forest”. Residents would be compensated for the market value of the property, according to municipal management.
Almeida said that the caiçaras, on their own initiative and with their own resources, have been preserving the bay and its forests for decades. “Here we multiply and plant jundu seedlings (undergrowth vegetation that covers the edges of the beaches, preventing erosion), we collect trash from the beachfront and, if there are oysters or invasive shellfish of an exotic species, we notify the authorities. environment. If the bay is what it is today, it is because of our care,” he said.
According to him, the city hall's proposal scares young and older residents. “When we talk about expropriating a property, it’s not just one family. I live in my house with three children, but brothers, nephews and other family members live on the land. It's all community, it's our tradition. My son asked me: 'Dad, what are we going to do?' The older caiçaras, who can’t read, are depressed and don’t leave the house,” he said.
The proposal to remove residents from Araçá Bay mobilized the Association of Fishermen and Traditional Communities of Araçá Bay (Apeco) and other communities in the region.
Coletivo Caiçara: São Sebastião, Ilhabela and Caraguatatuba used its social network to support the Araçá resistance movement. With boats in the sea and on foot on the beach, members of the 'Araçá Fica' movement held this Sunday, the 21st, the 'Abraço no Araçá' demonstration.
Before signing the expropriation decrees, the mayor had sent a complementary bill to the Chamber to establish the Program to Incentive the Eviction of Waterfronts in the Municipality of São Sebastião, with a request for urgent processing.
The project proposed the vacancy of areas considered sensitive to the payment for properties. The councilors considered the project unconstitutional because it did not have approval from the Union Heritage Secretariat, which manages the marine areas (bordering the coast), and the proposal was shelved. When contacted, the secretariat did not speak.
Councilor Giovani dos Santos (PP), known as 'Pixoxó', filed a draft legislative decree (PDL) in the Chamber so that the expropriations can be suspended.
“The municipal government cannot expropriate areas under federal protection. The territory of traditional communities is protected by the Constitution. There was no discussion with the community. The village is centuries old, retains its traditions and the municipality’s effort should be to preserve this culture.”
The case reached the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and resulted in the opening of an investigation to investigate the matter. “The Attorney General’s Office has already requested information and clarifications from the public bodies involved in this expropriation project. The next investigative steps will be taken after the MPF gathers and analyzes this information,” he said in a statement.
'The least common thing there is traditional fishermen', says mayor
The mayor states that the area he intends to expropriate is illegally occupied and that the majority of properties are occupied by companies or their agents. “It’s not a traditional community, there are fewer traditional fishermen there. There are sawmills, locksmiths and chemical toilet cleaning companies. It was a very beautiful bay, but they built houses right on top of the water. They destroyed the mangroves that we are trying to recover,” he said.
According to the mayor, the municipality has been compelled by court decisions to demolish illegally occupied properties in environmental areas. “We filed the expropriation project to pay a fair value, the market value. But the councilor had the idea of canceling the city hall’s actions. Thus, we will have expropriation only with compensation for improvements. The amount that each one will receive is far below what we would pay,” he said.
The plan, according to Augusto, is to remove the irregular constructions, build an environmental studies center, a bike path and sports court, and recover the mangrove.
“These are constructions without a project, without 'Occupancy', and which dump sewage into the sea. To make matters worse, there is a nearby nucleus, between the bay and the port, which is turning into the 'cracoland' of São Sebastião”, he continues. The municipal management says it intends to go to court if the decrees are overturned.
The Union Heritage Secretariat (SPU) reported that it maintains an integrated seafront management project that involves the decentralization of planning and management actions for this space from the federal to the municipal sphere. “The project, which was supported by the municipality of São Sebastião, was designed to respond to the demands of planning coastal spaces, making economic, heritage, tourist and environmental policies compatible.”
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