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ANALYSIS

The role of women in the mangrove crab (Ucides cordatus,Ocypodidae) production process in North Brazil (Amazonregion, Pará)

André Magalhãesa, Rauquírio Marinho da Costaa,* , Rossivaldo da Silvaa,Luci Cajueiro Carneiro Pereirab

aLaboratório de Plâncton e Cultivo de Microalgas, Universidade Federal do Pará, Campus Universitário de Bragança. Alameda Leandro Ribeiros/n, Aldeia, Bragança, Pará, BrazilbLaboratório de Oceanografia Costeira e Estuarina, Universidade Federal do Pará, Campus Universitário de Bragança. Alameda LeandroRibeiro s/n, Aldeia, Bragança, Pará, Brazil. CEP: 68600-000

A R T I C L E I N F O

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +55 91 34254536E-mail address: raucosta@ufpa.br (R.M. da

0921-8009/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevidoi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2006.05.013

A B S T R A C T

Article history:Received 19 February 2005Received in revised form5 May 2006Accepted 26 May 2006Available online 24 July 2006

The mangrove crab Ucides cordatus is considered by some authors as the keystone species inthe mangrove ecosystem of the Caeté river estuary, North Brazil. In this region, crab fisheryconstitutes the main source of income for native households, and crab collectors are almostall men. The present study was carried out to characterize the role of women in themangrove crab production process in the district of Caratateua (Pará, Brazil). Crabmeatprocessing and other activities, such as the construction of traps and other crab gatheringartifacts used by the men in crab collection, clearly place the women in the crab productionprocess.

© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Amazon regionUcides cordatusCrab pickersCrabmeatWomen

1. Introduction

Mangroves are coastal ecosystems situated in tropical andsubtropical zones, in which an intrinsic and complex pool ofecological and socioeconomic aspects is determinant to theimplementation of management planning. The mangrovesbiological importance undoubtedly resides in the fact that a lotof plant, invertebrate (crustacean, molluscan and others) andsome vertebrate species use these ecosystems as breeding andliving areas during their entire life cycles or during specificstages of their development (Hatcher et al., 1989; Robertson

; fax: +55 91 34251745.Costa).

er B.V. All rights reserved

et al., 1992; Twilley et al., 1996). The fauna and flora of themangrove constitute an intricate food web that is essential tothe health of coastal ecosystems, as well as to oceans andadjacent seas (Schaeffer-Novelli, 1995). On the other hand,these ecosystems are the niche chosen by a great number offishermen to obtain products that are essential to theirsubsistence (Odum and Heald, 1972).

In mangrove areas, the main element that defines the sur-vival of local communities is the familial work directed to theproductionunits. In theAmazon littoral some familialworks arecarried out by local communities that use mangrove natural

.

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products as resources for their subsistence andas analternativesource of income, although these products have a low totalmonetary value (Krause, 2002; Krause and Glaser, 2003). Amongthese products, themangrove crabUcides cordatus is considereda keystone species in estuaries innorthernBrazil (Schories et al.,2003) where studies linked to biological, economic and socialcriteria were carried out (Diele, 2000; Wolff et al., 2000; Glaser,2003; Nordhaus et al., 2006).

Studies focusing on gender relations in fishery communitiespermit the identification of the social, political and economicrole of women considering the global context in which they areinserted. They contribute to reflections concerning social rela-tions (Henrique, 2005) propitiating the disruption of traditionalstructures that limit the advance of public policies that satisfytheir strategic necessities, such as those related to health, repro-duction and equal work opportunities in the economic system.From the actual knowledge of fishery communities in Brazil andin particular in such communities inserted in the Amazon it ispossible to perceive that gender relations do not receive muchattention. Although the number of studies reflecting theeconomic, ecological and social aspects of these communitieshave been increasing over the past decades little informationexists about the active role of women in the Amazonian fisherycommunities (Furtado, 1987; Alencar, 1993; Motta-Maués, 1993;Maneschy, 1994), including theirparticipation in theexploitationof mangrove products (Maneschy, 2005) especially crabmeatprocessing (Cardoso, 2000; Alves, 2003). Crabmeat processingdeveloped by local women in the Amazon littoral and specifi-cally in the northeast state of Pará can be helpful to understandenvironmental constraints and gender relations in fisherycommunities from northern Brazil. Thus, the main aim of thisstudy is to describe the role of women in crabmeat productionprocessing in the Caeté estuary, as well as in other activitiesthat are essential to the well-being of their families, taking asreference the Caratateua crabmeat pickers' women.

Fig. 1 –Map showing location of the research area

2. Study area

Brazil has 8500 km of coastline and the second largest area ofcontinuousmangroves on earth (Kjerfve et al., 1997). The coastof Pará, in northern Brazil, is part of the Guianan–Amazonmangrovewith a relatively stable or intact conservation statusattributed to this ecoregion.

This work was carried out in the district of Caratateua,situated in northeast Pará, approximately 240 km southeast ofthe capital, Belém, and 18 km from the county of Bragança, onthe right bank of the Caeté river (Fig. 1). It can be accessed byriver or by dirt road (Bragança–Vizeu highway, PA-242). Theclimate is characterized by marked seasonality with a rainyseason from January to June and a dry season from July toDecember. Annual average rainfall and temperature are about2500 mm and 25.5 °C, respectively, with 75% of the precipita-tion falling in the rainy season (INMET, 1992).

This locality was chosen as the site for this study because it isrepresentative of the use of natural resources from mangroveecosystems and because the district comprises a significantnumber of households that are involved in mangrove crabmeatproduction. The total number of inhabitants inCaratateua is 8935people, ofwhich81% live in rural areas,while theother 19% live inurban areas (IBGE, 2000) in primary social units composed offamilygroups.Thenumberofpeoplewho livealone inCaratateuais insignificant (low), and always temporary. The Caratateuaeconomy is based mainly on fishery (fishes and crabs), withagriculture as a subsistence activity (Fontalvo-Herazo, 2004).

3. Methods

Crabmeat processing activities are essentially restricted to thewomenwho live in the urban area of Caratateuawhere the field

in the district of Caratateua (Pará), North Brazil.

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research was developed. There are 161 family units directlyinvolved in crab processing. The data were collected throughinterviews and questionnaires, conducted randomly withtwenty crabmeat pickerwomen of different age groups, rangingfrom16 to 55years of age. It is important tounderscore that eachof the twenty women interviewed in this study represents onefamily unit, so the universe sampled was 12.42% of the totalfemale population that work in crabmeat processing.

The visits to Caratateua were carried out between May andNovember 2001. During these visits, the every-day activities ofthe crabpickerswere recordedusing a combinationof structuredand semi-structured interview techniques. Other importantinformation was also obtained through informal discussionswith those interviewed. During the semi-structured interviewsthe pickers were asked about their role in the crab productionchain and encouraged to talk about their knowledge regardingthe environment and the utilization of thenatural resources (e.g.life cycle of themangrove crab and themost adequate period forcapture). All the interviews were made in the crab pickers'houses. To investigate the socio-economic pickers' profile, aspecific questionnaire was elaborated and applied by research-ers. In this questionnaire, data concerning age, marital status,occupation, and family income were gathered, as well as theknowledge of the pickers on crabmeat marketing.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Crab production and marketing chain

In Caratateua, as well as in most of the rural communitieslocated in coastal regions of the county of Bragança, a strongdependence of thehouseholds on themangrove ecosystemwasobserved by someauthors (Glaser et al., 1997; Krause et al., 2001;Duarte and Cabral, 2005). The economic viability of thesecommunities is based on the marketing of crab and fish. Crabsare captured all year along, including, inminor scale, during thelegal moratorium period from March to April when crabs walkon the surface rather than hide in their burrows. In this periodcaptures can be observed due to the inexistence of governmen-tal subsidies and scarce fiscalization by the Brazilian FederalEnvironmental Agency (IBAMA) that is responsible for theregulation of crab collection.

Glaser and Diele (2004), who studied central aspects of thesustainability of crab fisheries in the Caeté estuary, pointed outthat these fisheries presented seasonal and annual differencesin terms of labor input, capture volumes and productivity. Cap-tures during the dry season (July to December) are estimated at161 organisms per crab picker while the output per personduring the rainy off-season is about 147 crabs per person. Theannual crab landings in this region are approximately 1150 t(Diele et al., 2005).

The crab pickers work only in this activity during the yearand eventually use subsistence fishery during off-season pe-riods. According to Ramos (1999), besides the collection of crabsand fishes the inhabitants collect other resources for localcommercializationand/or subsistence suchas:mollusks (Mytelafalcata,Teredo sp.), firewoodandherbs for naturalmedicines. Forthe poorest rural families, mangrove products clearly have an

emergency food provision function and constitute the mainsource of protein in their diet.

The capture of U. cordatus in Caratateua, as well as in otherlocalities that are part of the production and commercializationchain for this resource along the Caeté estuary, is directedalmost exclusively towards the consumer market. Along thecoast of Pará, the catch ofU. cordatus is apparently decreasing insize (Gondim et al., 1998). This endangers the commercial via-bility of the crab fishery and may lead to competition betweencrab collectors within the region and bring them into conflictsand territorial disputes with collectors from other regions(Glaser, 2003). These territorial conflicts have been studied inother rural communities, in Bragança (Glaser and Grasso, 1998;Krause and Glaser, 2003; Silva da, 2004). Conflicts over the ter-ritory and itsnatural resources are indirect relationshipwith thediverging exploitation models (Castro, 1998).

Data obtained by Glaser (2003) showed the number of crabcollectors in the Caeté estuary area increased by 20% between1996 and 1998. This increase is a result of the demographicgrowth and of the flow of people who migrate from the interiortowards the coast. In faceof this crescent expansion incollector'snumbersandalsoof the free access situation to the crab resourcein the Caeté mangrove estuary, a predatory type of U. cordatuscapture has appeared (Glaser, 1999). Therefore, the large maleindividuals of commercial value are continually decreasing inavailability (Glaser, 2003). The mangrove-related commercialproduction is generating the greatest pressure on crab resources.However, there is no evidence of overfished status of the Caetécrab resource, in spite of the strong exploitation of U. cordatus inrecent years. At first, some key factors (e.g. selectivity of fish-ermen and consumers for large male crabs and local artisanalcapture techniques) are contributing to prevent an overfishing ofthe crab population in the Caeté mangroves (Diele et al., 2005).These authors also concluded that in this region the social andeconomic sustainability of the crab fishery will be affected wellbefore the biological one.

The increase in crabmeat production is directly associated tothe rising demand of crab products on the regional and nationalmarket. The conclusion of the construction of PA-458 highwayin 1983 linking the fishing communities to the central marketshas facilitated this commerce. In order to supply the increasingdemand of crab products, the wives and daughters of crabcollectors have engaged in the production andmarketing chainof crabs, byprocessingcrabmeat in thecommunitieswhere theylive. Similar observations were made in the Guarajubal village(coast of Pará, Brazil) by Cardoso (2000). In this study, the authoralso reported that the work developed by the women incrabmeat processing is relevant for the studies of gender rela-tions in Amazonian fishing communities. Crab processing is animportant part of crabmarketing inCaratateua andhas recentlybecome the primary economic activity of the community, notonly in terms of the number of households involved, but be-cause crabmeat actually (since last decade) represents the bestway to export this fishery product.

Two different systems of crab marketing were observed inCaratateua. The first is the direct sale to the consumer by thecrab collector. This kind of trade constitutes a small portion ofthe overall market. The second system observed is character-ized by the presence of a middleman, who advances money tothe crab collector in anticipation of acquiring his catch. In this

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system, the crab collector is locked into an informal agreementin which all his production is owed to the middleman and thisdependence permits the middleman to set the price for thewhole capturedcrab. Inmost cases, this transactionbenefits themiddleman and creates a situation in which the crab collectortends to gathermore andmore crabs, to compensate for the lowprice paid for his catches (Blandtt, 1999).

The crab bought by themiddleman is either sold in natura onnearby markets or processed into crabmeat in the communitywhere it was captured. Once processed, the crabmeat is ref-rigerated and transported to larger and more distant centers ofconsumption in the State of Pará, such as Belém, Castanhal,Ourém, Paragominas and other big cities in the State. OtherBrazilian state capitals, suchas Fortaleza,Natal, Recife, Salvadorand São Paulo, have also been interested in purchasing thecrabmeat that reaches these distant locations through theintervention of middlemen who distribute the product to re-gional markets, supermarkets and restaurants.

4.2. The family works in the crab production process

The social organization of work in the crabmeat production pro-cess in Caratateua is based on units formed by family membersand distant relatives, who come to live in their homes. The rulesthat define the work with respect to working time, specificactivities, the territorywhere thenatural resources are exploited,aswell as the division of labor by age and sex are all incorporatedand implementedby the familyunit. Themenare responsible forthe capture of crabs in the mangrove, mainly because this acti-vity implies a specific knowledge of capture methods. Eventhough it is dangerous and unhealthy, crab gathering is con-sidered the main economic activity in Caratateua.

Within the domestic sphere, thewoman is themember of thefamily unit who exercises control over the workspace and orga-nizes the activities so as to maximize the efficiency of crabmeatproduction and to ensure the reproduction and the conveying ofsocial and cultural values in the family. It is thewomenwho raisethe children, prepare themeals and watch over the health of theother family members. Other activities, such as crabmeat pro-cessing, even though they are a vital part of the marketing pro-cess, are seen as an extension of their household duties and areundervalued and considered as secondary, as compared to themales' work of crab collecting from the mangrove. This is aconsequence of the perception that the daily work done by thewomen, even though they indirectly contribute to the wellbeingof the family group, is awork forwhich they earn little or nothingfor the familyunit, andcrabpicking is consideredadomestic task,even by thewomenwho participate in it, not deserving the samestatus as themen'swork inmangrove fishing and crab collection.These unequal gender relations were also recorded in otherstudies conducted in Brazil (Simonian, 1995; Campbell, 1996) andin the world (Rubinoff, 1999; Siar, 2003).

This kind of labor division by sex is found inmost of the ruralAmazon counties where the geographical location of the housesand communities is influenced by the presence or diversity ofnatural subsistence resources. Although some of the resourcesderived from a kitchen garden are essential to the family group,theyarenot consideredveryvaluable, due to the fact that theyareunder the women's responsibility. However, this kind of produc-tion sometimes generates a newsource of family income (Castro,

1995). Studies of coastal fishing communities in Brazil (Diegues,1983; Furtado, 1987) have shown the difficulties of female workrecognition, and this fact has becomeanobstacle to the conquestof equality and citizenship by women in the work environment.

Taking this aspect into account, it is important to evaluate therole of women in crab production. Considering the process as awhole, it is especially important to analyze the activities under-taken by thewomen in their households. The daily work of thesewomen,even though it is carriedout inareas thataredistant fromthe men's workplace, in this case the mangrove, is an importantlink in the crabmeat production system. The work done by thewomen leaves the males free to pursue crab gathering full-time.Otheractivitiesperformedbywomen in thepre-captureandpost-capture processes ratify the importance of their participation inthe crab production system chain. The women sew rugged armsleeves and socks to protect the arms and feet of their husbandswhile walking in the treacherous mangrove with its aerial rootsystems. In the post-capture period, the women take over thework, in addition to their multiple activities at home, thus be-coming an integral part of the crabmarket and contributing to thecohesion and stability of the family groups.

4.3. Women in the crab-picking operation

In the Caratateua district, crab picking is concentrated essen-tially in the urban area. In this location, aswell as in other areasof the community where crab processing is undertaken, theactual rendering of crabmeat is a simple process and does notrequire technical expertise. The women's ability to cook and toprepare food for consumption is the most important techniquein this process. These culinary abilities have been handeddownfor generations and are an important aspect of their culture.

The followingutensils are required to render crabmeat: a largeanddeeppan of cast iron or aluminum to cook thewhole crabs, alarge wooden mallet for cracking the crab legs and pincers, acontainer to place the crabmeat, and a work table where thepicking and cracking takes place. Unsanitary conditions in ren-dering crabmeat are common, even characteristic, in the crab-picking process.

The work is done in backyard kitchens by the wives of thecrab gatherers, their daughters and othermembers of the family(Fig. 2). The young adolescents work in crabmeat processing toearn some money to meet their personal needs, such as buyingclothes, shoes, schoolbooks andother items that require an extracash income from the family group. Children and adolescentsmake up 4% of the work force found in crabmeat processing inthe mangrove areas surrounding Bragança (Blandtt, 2002).

The age of the crabmeat pickers ranges from 16 to 55 years.Their weekly cash income varies fromUS$ 4 to 10. Some of thewomen are single and are the head of their family. In general,the amount of crabmeat rendered by the younger pickers issmaller than that of the older pickers, who have greater ex-perience in the complicated task of picking out the meat fromthe crab carapace (Fig. 3).

Some of the female crab pickers also process crabs capturedby crab collectors other than their husbands, and they are paidaccording to theamountof crabmeat rendered.Thewomenplayan intermediary role in the crabmeat industry and have a workrelationship that aggregates further value to the production(crab catch) of their husbands. In this case, the higher the

Fig. 3 –Frequency, age class and weekly cash income (US$) ofwomen crabmeat pickers.

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production of the husbands, the more the wives earn byprocessing. In some cases, the women may relinquish othertraditional domestic duties in order to pick crabs and to increasefamily income. This phenomenonhas led to a rearrangement inthe family group that tends to optimize the availablework force.

During crab processing, themeat extracted from the legs andcarapace is separated from themeat extracted from the pincersbecause their prices are different. Thirty-two large crabs orthirty-five medium to small-size crabs are needed to render akilogram ofmeat. Crab picking usually starts early in themorn-ing and proceeds until late afternoon. The average weekly pro-duction is 25 kg per family. Middlemen pay about US$ 0.35 forone kilogramof crabmeat. Between themonths of April and July(rainy period) the prices rise to 40 cents a kilogram. Crabmeat issold in supermarkets and regionalmarkets at prices three timeshigher than those usually paid to the crab pickers.

For the women of Caratateua district, crab picking is an im-portant activity in their lives, but it is not an ongoing work, andtheir participation in thework force depends on themarket, theoscillations of employment and unemployment of their hus-bands and the needs of their children. These circumstances donot allow the women's individualization process to progressand tend to underrate women's work and emphasize their pri-mordial reproductive role in the community. The importance ofwomen, not only in the social environment, but also in thefamilial relationships, and their traditional knowledgeabout theutilization of the natural resources, make them a vital part ofrural reality. Since women are the main educators and rep-roducers of the new generations, their importance in thetransmission of cultural values and knowledge from one gene-ration to thenext is very clear in the community (Alencar, 1997).

Although crabmeat processing women do recognize thatcrab size has been decreasing over the years they do not con-jecture any other income sources other than crabmeat proces-sing. The woman figure is preponderantly related to domesticactivities while men are responsible for decision-makingregarding production methods, quantities fished, processed,sold andexported.With regard to the environmental awarenessof Caratateua's pickers' women, it is interesting to underscore

Fig. 2 –Photo showing women in the crab-picking operationin the district of Caratateua (Pará), North Brazil.

their knowledge about the life cycle of the mangrove crab andthe most adequate period for its capture. The following nar-rative of a female crab picker is very illustrative:

Fat in the months of March and April, when it is growing, right.Then it changes its shell (month of June), and afterward it startsto shrink until the months of October and November when it cangrow again. When it is neither fat nor skinny, you can crack itsshell at the joint and pull out the meat that comes out in one piecefrom its shell. When it is fat, we have hard work. We have tobreak the entire shell to get out the meat.

Another factor that makes women very important protago-nists in the crab production process is their knowledge abouthow to cook the crabs. This knowledge consists of techniquesthat reduce the loss of crabmeat during processing.

We buy the crab on the riverbank (port) already quartered. Athome we wash it and put it in an onion sack. When the deep panof cast iron or aluminum is already full of water and steaming,we put in 3 kilos of salt and then we throw the sack inside it.When the water starts to spill from the pan, it is time to take outthe crabs.

Therefore, it is important tomention that the role of womenin theworkplace does not concern only their work at home, butalso their ability to coordinate the relations between familymembers and keep them together. This awareness will bringabout an economic and familial valorization of these women.

5. Conclusions

The participation of women in the crab production system is anopportunity for the women of Caratateua to help increase theirfamilies' income, making use of available work places on thelocal market, despite rural women's usual search for employ-ment as servants as occurs in other zones closer to cities withhigher populational densities and greater economic develop-ment. The work division model adopted in this system is

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marked by gender differences and was perceived by theseparation of activities being carried out and the workspaceoccupied by men and women, respectively. This is one of thefactorswhich is responsible for thepoor recognitionofwomen'swork, leading to the underrating ofwomen in society,mainly bythemselves, limiting the creation and regulation of women'sassociations and excluding them from retirement benefits. Theunderrating of women by both genders is one of the character-istics of Brazilian society. Even though they get some recogni-tion for thework they perform in theworkplace, women receivelittle attention for the role they play in the survival strategies ofthe group and are recognized only for their reproductiveabilities. The role they play in the crab industry in Caratateuais considered complementary, even though it is evident thattheir work is important for the survival of their family.Therefore, when women will be seen not only as housewives,but recognized as an important link that guarantees therelations and maintenance of the family, it will be possible tohave more symmetric social relationships.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank Dr. Edna Castro for helpful assistance andvaluable commentsand toall thewomen thatwork in the crab-picking operation in Caratateua for their valuable assistanceduring this research. This research was financially supportedby the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de NívelSuperior (CAPES), Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA) andNúcleo de Estudos Costeiros (NEC).

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