Linha Verde-Estrada Cicatriz: Socio-environmental Conflicts and Impacts on the Northern Coast of Bahia

Resumo

This article analyzes the socio-environmental conflicts and impacts that have emerged and intensified alongside the most recent wave of capital expansion on the Northern coast of the state of Bahia (northeastern Brazil), driven by the implementation of mass tourism. This process began with the construction of Brazil’s first all-inclusive resort, Costa do Sauípe Resort, supported by public policies, notably through the construction and expansion of the BA-099 highway, known as Linha Verde. This qualitative investigation takes as its object of analysis the documentary Linha Verde: Estrada Cicatriz (Green Line: Scar Highway, in English), produced in 2008 by a team of researchers from the School of Communication at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), through the public call Ponto de Cultura. The documentary presents a diverse set of social actors who, through their testimonies, recount events and contradictions surrounding key transformations that reshaped the social and environmental fabric of Bahia’s Northern Coast during the transition from the 20th to the 21st century. As a methodological strategy, this article presents seven units of analysis: two related to environmental impacts and five to socio-environmental conflicts, most of which occurred along the coast of the municipality of Mata de São João, where the resort is located. The article concludes that the objects of dispute are land and water territories (sea, mangroves, lagoons, and rivers) belonging to local communities, as well as their historically constructed ways of life, closely linked to natural assets and communal spaces, such as beaches.