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Paper short abstract:

Climate change and pollution are having an impact within the fishing practices and culture of local artisanal fishing communities, exacerbating existing uncertainty, struggle and social tensions. Through ethnography it is possible to understand the fishermen's perspective, clarifying misconceptions.

Paper long abstract:

Regarding the impacts of climate change local fishing communities are highly vulnerable social settings. For the last half-century local fishing communities in Portugal have experienced several climate change impacts, such as coastal erosion and fisheries decline, adding to a long history of other adversities, environmental, economical or political.

Currently, the issue of plastic debris brought an extra pressure to the life of local fishing communities as it affects directly their activities and fishing resources. However, as most of the plastic debris, that can be found a shore either in beaches and docks, are considered to stem from fishing activities, and in spite of coastal fishing activities ranging from industrial fisheries to very small artisanal fishing activities and recreational fishing, local artisanal fisherman are held responsible for it. They became thus the focus of environmental movements, blaming them for the litter and pollution of coastal waters.

Misunderstood or not, these pressures added a negative factor to the tense social condition of these fishing communities, impoverished and strongly challenged by other competing economic activities in the same territories, such as tourism, recreational activities and real estate. These environmental pressures also turned up to be revealing of some of the identity struggles these communities face today.

In this paper, I present an ethnographic research based on fieldwork among the local artisanal fishermen of Setúbal, addressing their connection to nature and material culture, as to understand their perspective on the problem of plastic and sea pollution, as part of the global and climate change issue.