Aoka in Transition: Ubatuba and Paraty, Brazil, April-May 2010

The Aoka team recently traveled along the coast of Southeastern Brazil where mountains lush with Atlantic rainforests merge with pristine beaches. We engaged with the three Afro-descendant and fisherfolk communities of Camburi, Campinho and Fazenda in order to get a sense of their rhythm of life and see how some of their needs and desires for community development can be met through sustainable tourism. We sat down in forest areas, village squares, porches and a 19th century flour mill to interview the locals both young and old. Our questions were informed by a methodology called Appreciative Inquiry, which builds on the strengths and dreams of a community to carry out generative actions for positive change.

From these rich exchanges, we gathered the following wish list: community pride in its history; union through community dialogue; self-organized and contained tourism that is conscious not predatory; value in the transfer of traditional knowledge from the elders to the young; reclamation and respect for local values and customs; youth opportunities for employment and culturally sensitive education; community self-sufficiency; respect for the environment; meaningful, active exchange between locals and visitors; and a need for more infrastructure: inns, restaurants, camping, and capacity-building courses for trade. Underlying this list is the continued struggle to secure community rights to land and natural resources, which is further complicated by the fact that the communities are situated within state park zones of conservation.

This visit to the communities was critical in getting to know the local people and building their trust in our work towards a sustainable model for tourism and intercultural exchange. We were inspired by the elders who hold extraordinary traditional knowledge. Among them were: Seu Genésio from Camburi who can list—in one breath--all the different types of endemic wood used to build canoes; Seu Roberto who can still perform a religious line dance called the São Gonçalo; and Seu Zé Pedro who tells cobra legends and bestows blessings upon those open to his energy. There was a sense from these elders that many local traditions are disappearing such as various dances and festivals. Yet there is still the promise of the young, especially in Campinho, where a renaissance of cultural activities embraces the jongo (an Afro-Brazilian dance, which originates from the Bantu culture), capoeira, and handicrafts made from a variety of grasses, seeds and other forest flora. We also glimpsed some of the challenges of developing travel itineraries in the region such as lack of electricity and telecommunications, dirt roads, and rising rivers in the rainy season. The themes and experiences gathered from this journey will inform the overall framework of our upcoming Ubatuba-Paraty Aoka Summit, which will happen in late July-early August, 2010. A photo album of this trip has been kindly featured on this site for the Create Culture community to view. Any thoughts or insights from the community would be most welcome. For more information about our work, please visit: http://www.aoka.com.br