Socio-environmental and psychosocial impacts caused by oil spills on Artisanal Fisherwomen and Fishermen

Abstract

In August 2019, eleven Brazilian states were hit by an extensive oil spill. In this context: what are the main socio-environmental and psychosocial impacts caused by the oil spill on the lives of families and individuals who make their living from artisanal fishing? This is a research with mixed methods that used the following techniques: focus group and application of forms developed in a participatory manner with communities at the mouth of the Jaguaribe River, Ceará, and applied between July and August 2020. Its application was selected from a non-probabilistic sampling of the intentional type by judgment and was processed with the support of the IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The results indicate environmental impacts, such as: finding oil in the river and in animals; direct human exposure to oil; health symptoms after exposure; psychological effects; consumption of food resources such as fish and shellfish; and reduction in the income of Artisanal Fishermen and Fisherwomen. That way, it is understood that the lives, environment, health, and work of these populations were aggravated, especially those of socioeconomic, food and water security, and health orders.