If the divers imagined by Chico Buarque explored the Atafona sea, there they would find fragments of letters, poems, lies, portraits and traces of a civilization that, in part, ceased to exist. Just like the submerged city narrated in the song “Futuros Amantes”, the district of São João da Barra, in Norte Fluminense, and its memories have been swallowed by the water.
Since the 1960s, the advance of the sea has caused the destruction of more than 500 houses, causing hundreds of families to be displaced. Tens of blocks went to the bottom of the ocean.
Attached to Atafona, many residents have changed residence a few times to escape the sea, without ever leaving the small community. For them, affective losses are more painful than material ones: there are places that marked their lives to which they will never be able to return.
Coastal erosion is explained by a number of reasons, but the main one is the siltation of the Paraíba do Sul river, which has its delta (type of mouth where the river flows into the sea through several channels) in Atafona.
With about 7,000 inhabitants, the district is a kind of laboratory of the consequences of human intervention in an ecosystem. This is because the siltation of the river was caused especially by water diversion for domestic, industrial and agricultural supply in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
With a smaller volume, Paraíba do Sul is unable to face the sea and transport sediment in sufficient quantity to stop the advance of water in Atafona. Natural conditions, such as the dynamics of ocean currents and strong winds in the locality, also contribute to the process.
Atafona is just one of many coastal regions that suffer from coastal erosion around the world. Given climate change and rising sea levels, the scenario could worsen in the coming decades.
The geographer Eduardo Bulhões, professor at the UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense), recalls that a survey identified that only 4% of all coastal regions in the world erode at rates above five meters per year. Atafona is one of those places. In the most critical areas, the sea advances about six meters per year. In some periods, the advance reached nine meters.
“Erosion only becomes a problem when there is an installed city. In this context, Atafona is perhaps the main point of the country”, he says.
The severe erosion process that takes place there contrasts with the tranquility of the place, where life unfolds at a slower pace, buildings are not seen and horns are not heard. It is common for residents to know each other. That’s how the report arrived at the home of retired Sonia Ferreira, 77, a reference in the community.
Accustomed to spending summers in Atafona, Sonia and her family bought a house there in the late 1970s. At the time, a few blocks separated the building from the beach. Today, the residence faces the sea.
In front of Sonia’s house are the ruins of the well-known Julinho building, the only one in the region, brought down by waves in 2008. “It was a very big impact. We always have that hope that it won’t make it to our house” , it says.
When the sea destroyed her wall in 2019, Sonia accepted that she needed to move. The retired woman decided to move to a small house at the back of the land and, little by little, has been removing her belongings.
“Atafona was a place for vacations, walks, joy. Losing this is difficult. You have your little corners in the house that remind you of loved ones. These little corners are lost in your history.”
The Julinho building is also cited as one of the best memories of businesswoman Camila Hissa, 31, daughter of the founders of Ricardinho restaurant, the most famous in Atafona. “It was an iconic place, there was a bar that sold a delicious pie with a peculiar smell. It’s the epitome of childhood”, he says.’
His parents founded the restaurant in 1978 and had to move it three times to escape the advancing sea. “Whoever is from here has learned to live with each other. It’s not something you get angry and drop everything, go away.”
Camila reports that restaurants and fishermen were greatly impacted by the difficulties of navigation due to the siltation of the river. About three years ago there was such a critical period that the boats were unable to land the fish in Atafona.
Fisherman Valcinei Bento, 52, remembers that at that time, boats only worked at high tide. “It was hell. We arrived at the edge of the slaughterhouses and it was a ghost zone”, he says.
Despite the financial losses, Camila says emotional losses are the worst. “That story was simply erased. It was a time when photography was very expensive. Photos are rare,” he says.
Earlier in the year, an interactive project known as the Ambulante Museum took to the streets an enormous bicycle with old photographs of Atafona. The collection and the initiative were developed by the artistic residency CasaDuna, founded by the philosopher Julia Naidin and the plastic artist Fernando Codeço.
Codeço says the reaction from the community was impressive and that many residents identified themselves in the photos when they were still children. “People were immediately moved, they wanted to tell stories”, he says.
He says that CasaDuna wants to contribute to the production of local memory and also discuss the predatory way in which we deal with the environment. “Talking about Atafona is talking about this Brazil that is crumbling and a civilizing process that needs to change.”
Some of the photos that attracted the most attention were those of Ilha da Convivência, the first place reached by the advance of the sea. Over the decades, the families of fishermen who lived there were forced to leave the place, where no one lives today.
One of the last to leave the island, in September 2008, Jamira Pedra Gomes, 58, resisted for decades, even after losing two homes. She remembers that on the day she left, she woke up at dawn with the sea lapping at the walls. “I said ‘help me, God’. I hope to cool my legs, because I’m not going to put my warm legs on the blanket in this cold water”, he says.
From 1 am to 8 am, Jamira carried all her belongings alone. The next day, the walls collapsed. His sister, Janira Pedra Monteiro, 60, had moved from the island years earlier. When the sea entered her house, she let everything go. “We get tired. The sea had taken over four of my houses,” he says.
Decades after the move, the sisters returned by boat to the island accompanied by the report. Janira says she misses going canoeing, fishing for manjuba, catching crabs and making fishing nets. “I think [na ilha], I hardly sleep at night. That night I thought so much about that place, about the people who left.”
Jamira gets even more emotional—arriving on the island, she cried and pointed to the place where she had owned a bar. “I wanted to grow old there. I like it so much that I want to stay,” he says.
She says that the homesickness turned into depression. “I live off work. I like to be hanging out with people, talking, to distract myself.”
Psychological disorders are cited by psychologist Leandro Viana as one of the consequences of the erosive process in the lives of residents.
Finishing a doctoral thesis at Uenf (Northern Fluminense State University) on Atafona, he says that many report feeling anguish and anxiety because they are always alert to the movement of the sea. Waiting for a solution also causes suffering.
“The fishermen talk a lot about the Ilha da Convivência, a place of a lot of exchange and solidarity. By losing this place, that too was lost,” he says.
Over the past six years, hearings have been held to address the issue with civil society, the Federal Public Ministry and the Public Defender’s Office. Three solutions were presented, but none came out of the paper.
The resolution collides with at least three points: the lack of articulation between the municipal, state and federal powers, the cost of the works and the insecurity regarding their environmental effects. First, you need to obtain a license from Inea (State Environmental Institute).
“The Union, states and municipalities have a responsibility to look after the beach ecosystem. As the responsibilities and interest are diffuse, no one feels obliged to solve it. On the other hand, any work to increase the beach strip takes time”, says the geographer Eduardo Bulhões, author of one of the projects.
Bulhão’s proposal involves the artificial fattening of the beach to reverse the sand deficit. He believes that any solution that is proposed as definitive, using rigid structures such as spikes, is misleading.
“Everywhere protections with structures were created, additional problems were generated, and all the works have a useful lifespan”, he says.
The geographer says that one of the options that can be adopted is to do nothing, but that there still needs to be planning and information on the population. “I think that in Atafona there was this option, of several governments, and this is not communicated efficiently.”
Gilberto Pessanha, a professor at Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo), who has been studying the case of Atafona for 20 years, says that even artificial fattening requires monitoring of waves and winds. This involves technology, people and more resources.
“There is a doubt because there are places where there was an initiative to fatten the beach and the erosive process has returned”, he says.
Secretary of the Environment of São João da Barra, Marcela Toledo says that the impact of the works has not yet been widely studied. She says that Inea indicated, in 2020, that none of the projects has proven effectiveness. In fact, the agency cited issues to be worked on, but none of them were negatively evaluated.
In September of this year, a Technical Chamber was created with the City Hall and society entities to continue discussing the situation and thinking about possible solutions. Toledo also defends that the actions must pass through the Union, which, according to the Federal Constitution, owns the beaches.
In a note sent to sheet, the Secretariat for Coordination and Governance of the Union’s Heritage states that the necessary referrals are the responsibility of the municipal administration. The federal government argues that the Statute of Cities gave municipalities the legal capacity to manage the surfaces of cities.
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