Entre a mudança cultural e a formação de sujeitos ecológicos: os tartarugueiros do Projeto TAMAR

Abstract

In 1980, the Tamar project started conservation activities and performed a survey on the Brazilian beaches looking for information on the uses and cultural habits related to the sea turtles. After diagnosing that the consumption of meat / eggs was related to extinction, we invited some well-known fishermen to start a new job in search of a possible behavioral change in the communities. Through this study, we sought to understand the roots of these changes through two tartarugueiros from the Tamar project. They were observed on a daily basis but not investigated more systematically. Was there a formation of ecological subjects? or everything happened through circumstantial inductions (exchange for money)? The methodology used was based on biographical narratives. Those chosen to participate live in the Coqueiros community, Jandaíra County / BA. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with each tartarugueiro, and the themes addressed were: ecology of sea turtles, personal background and professional training (as a fisherman / tartarugueiro); perception of changes in recent years in their region and in their own lives and projects and fears for their future and their descendants’. Between the presented views; one narrows comprehension of the environment to the village; the other one is wider and there is an extension of the conservatory role to other species (like foxes), as well as the environment in general. These views express themselves in a variation of personal actions beyond the job, having the compromise of making the community focused into not being predators. One can say that the working relationship, the general cultural changes, the training, the enforcement action and observable results of the project jointly complete the behavioral changes related to the turtles. The qualification of the tartarugueiros as ecological subjects is ongoing.