Eliete Paraguassu, Fighting A Dragon

Foto: Nop Duys

Eliete Paraguassu dedicates her life to the preservation of the traditional quilombola fishermen’s culture in the Bay of All Saints in Bahia, Brazil. This black culture is threatened in its existence by reckless petrochemical industrial activities in one of Brazil’s historical hotspots. ‘They have no idea how painful the life of a fisherwoman in the mangrove is. Nobody knows how much pain the destruction of the sandbanks causes our communities.’

By Nop Duys

I saw Eliete Paraguassu in full action during the production of the documentary film ‘No Rio e No Mar’ which is screened at the Movies that Matter Festival. It was on Maré, a small tropical island in the Bay of All Saints in the Brazilian north-eastern state of Bahia. That October morning she was presiding over a meeting with a municipal delegation from Salvador on the construction of basic sanitation in her village of Porto dos Cavalos, when she received a phone call from relatives at the other side of the bay. An explosion had been heard in the neighbouring city of Madre de Deus. Flames came from a storage tank of the local natural gas station of TransPetro, a subsidiary of Brazil’s energy giant Petrobras. Parts of the local population were already evacuated because of the risk of a larger explosion.

While rushing towards the plagued city in a motorized canoe, Eliete told us with her characteristic militancy about the regular accidents at the various petrochemical industry sites on the borders of the bay. She explained us all about the permanent threat of explosions and the pollution of the local fishing grounds. ‘Since about twelve years we feel threatened. Every morning we wake up wondering what kind of surprise will await us today. What explosion will occur, what decree will be issued?’ And it’s true. At night, the huge petrochemical installation of Petrobras with it’s million lights on the other side of the bay appears like a giant dragon, waiting to usurpe the surrounding quietness of this idyllic tropical area.

Quilombo culture

Eliete Paraguassu is one of the leaders of the local Fisherman’s Union in the villages of Porto dos Cavalos, Martelo and Ponta Grossa on the northern side of the island. Their main objective is the protection of the traditional fishing grounds of quilombola communities against the growing presence of the petrochemical industry in the Recôncavo area in Bahia. In their view, that presence is part of the unbridled and destructive economic policy of desenvolvimento (development) by the Brazilian authorities.
‘It is a perverse system,’ Eliete says during our conversation. ‘We are convinced that our culture, the quilombo culture, will continue in the traditional way. We know the strength of our culture and our people will carry on. But the petrochemical companies will attempt to disturb us with their installations. They will reduce our quilombos, our fishermen’s communities, and destroy our indigenous community. We know the mangrove is full of blood, so to speak, and we will not sit still with our arms crossed! I became politically active because we need to protect this space, which ties us to the ancestral culture of our peoples. We are killed in the name of profit, in the name of money, in the name of that particular model of development.’

Environmental impact

Activities of the petrochemical industry in the Bay of All Saints date from the nineteen-fifties when oil and gas reserves were discovered in the Reconcâvo area by Petrobras. In the decades following this discovery, several refineries and port facilities were developed, such as TransPetro and Braskem, a joint-venture of Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht with Petrobras.

‘It hurts me deeply when yet another petrochemical installation or port facility is constructed near fishermen’s communities,’ says Eliete. ‘They destroy thousands and thousands of mangrove areas. And by destroying these mangroves, they destroy us. It’s no incident, it’s part of structural, unbridled developmental policies by the Brazilian government and industry. It transforms our community, because in a disturbed mangrove it’s impossible to catch small fish and crabs.’

According to Eliete, existing procedures for environmental and social protection are poorly observed by the companies. This leads to the pollution of the bay with heavy metals and other toxic waste. This, in turn, affects the traditional fishing grounds on the sandbanks and in the mangroves. Eliete, who has two children, found out that her daughter’s blood contained traces of heavy metals like lead and quicksilver. She also feared for her son’s health. ‘I am standing on the barricades for the lives of my children and their offspring.’ Eliete mentions a case in the Bananeira community on the isle of Maré, where a child had died from lead pollution in the port of Aratú, located directly opposite the island.

Sexual violence

The presence of big petrochemical industries not only poses a threat to the environment and to physical health, it also impacts the psychological well-being of women in the bay area. Eliete: ‘The companies tell us they are operating for our benefit too, but we fear them and their staff. We fisherwomen constantly feel very insecure to go fishing in the mangroves. Women are raped there by workers of these companies. In our culture it was traditionally normal for a woman to go fishing on her own in the mangroves. The authorities have no idea how these economic activities affect us, they don’t know how powerless we feel when there is no help whatsoever for women being attacked in the mangroves. We feel threatened of losing all our rights, all our fishing grounds on the sandbanks and in the mangroves. We feel raped.’


Eliete and other members of the regional fishermen’s associations are trying for years now to prove misconduct by the petrochemical companies and the disastrous effects of their activities on the traditional way of life of the quilombola communities. They do this together with a Bahia state public prosecutor and several academic experts on environmental issues. Some academics have even called it ‘environmental racism’. Their aim is to oblige companies to operate according to environmental laws and licenses. It is not financial compensation Eliete Paraguassu is after. ‘We will never endure the loss of family members. Even if they come with thousands of boats loaded with money, it will never cure our pain and that of our relatives. This is all I have on Maré: the mangrove, my parents, my children and my friends. I don’t need money to be happy.’

Bron: Meet The True Heroes. A Matter of Act 2016 @moviesthatmatterfestival