JEAN CARLOS COSTA SOARESABSTRACT
In the Brazilian coast there are traditional communities that depend on marine resources for survival. Fishermen, shellfish and crab pickers are some extractive craft activities that exist in our coastal zone. The crayfish land crab (Ucides cordatus) is a delicacy much consumed in the country, especially in Northern and northeastern Brazil. In the Baixo Parnaíba maranhense region, municipality of Araioses, is one of the largest communities of pickers of land caranguejo-uçá country: Carnaubeiras. The town, in addition to being inserted in the Delta of the Parnaíba APA, owes its importance to the large export trade crustacean to neighboring states of Piauí and Ceará as well as being situated between the major tourist routes in the country (Jericoacoara / CE and sheets Maranhão / MA). The limits of our object of study can be explained in the question: which led these crab collectors to poverty and are excluded as citizens? Thus, low education, exploitation and poor access to public policies for crab pickers are hypotheses that could respond to the problem formulated. However, such goals, we seek to understand the social and economic conditions of crab collectors of the town of Carnaubeiras attempt to establish their social profile and to analyze their working conditions and collective organization and identification of your sources of income and principal problems with marketing its product collection: the land crab. The methodology was used specialized bibliographies dealing with the issue, in addition to documentary research. The fieldwork was conducted in community Carnaubeiras (January-October 2013) through daily field through participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The results show that first, the crab collectors have low education due to its early entry with parents in catching crayfish in the mangroves, therefore, unable to attend school; Second, the income of these workers do not reach the minimum wage, and in that case, they rely on social benefits from the government to supplement income; Third and consequently, low pay is the result of plunder by the entrepreneurs gastronomy and tourism from neighboring states which impose the price of the crustacean unit; fourth category lack collective organization; Finally, fifth, noted the ambiguity of the government in recognizing the activity of crab hunter, but gives the benefit of unemployment insurance at the time of closure of the crustacean as another category of work and not as crab hunter. We conclude that the results obtained in this study are interrelated and denote the frame of the current situation in the crab hunter Carnaubeiras community. Poverty in the region is evident because the income earned exclusively on the collection of crayfish is insufficient to support the family.
Keywords: Crab catcher. Poverty. Araioses.