Wetlands Ecology and Management 11: 265–272, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 265 Interrelations between mangrove ecosystem, local economy and social sustainability in Caet´ e Estuary, North Brazil Marion Glaser Center for Tropical Marine Ecology, Fahrenheitstr. 6, D-28359 Bremen, Germany; E-mail: mglaser@zmt.uni-bremen.de Received 10 July 2000; accepted in revised form 23 September 2002 Key words: Brazil, mangroves, occupational structure, poverty, social sustainability Abstract Various types of subsistence and commercial extraction of mangrove products are identified on the North Brazilian coast. Of 2500 households in 21 rural communities (about 13.000 people) near the Caeté estuary, 83% derive sub- sistence income, and 68% cash income through use of mangrove resources. The mangrove crab (Ucides cordatus) is collected and sold by 42% of households, and constitutes a main income source for 38%. Including processing and trading occupations, over half of the investigated population depend on the mangrove crab for financial income. Mangrove fishery occupies the lower rural income groups in the fisheries sector. About 30% of households engage in commercial fishing in or near the mangrove. Illegal commercial and subsistence use of mangrove wood and bark maintains a considerable number of rural households. In the context of widespread rural poverty in coastal North Brazil, it is important for mangrove management to take into account subsistence production, which has a central socio-economic function for the rural poor who live close to the mangroves. Socio-economic priorities in mangrove villages were, in order of importance, educational quality, occupational options, medical care, the low level of mangrove product prices, access to electricity and local leadership quality. Introduction For decades now, the finite character of renewable nat- ural resources has been demonstrated in practice and at the analytical level (Meadows et al., 1972). Human- ity currently exceeds important productive and waste assimilation capacities of the global ecosphere (Good- land, 1995; Meadows et al., 1992). Moreover, it is clear that not only direct human overuse of renewable natural resources such as forests and fish, but also the indirect dynamics operating via often poorly under- stood ecosystem paths can have undesirable outcomes. This has increased the importance of ecosystem stud- ies for effective management approaches. In this con- text, the 1992 Rio conference achieved a near-global demand for attention to natural resource management issues (Brown, 1997). However, as observed by Pomeroy (1995), Govan et al. (1998) and experienced by this author in forest and coastal management in Central Amer- ica and Brazil, scientific-technical management plan- ning throughout the 1990s has often merely resulted in the stacking of unimplemented plans on institu- tional shelves. Partly as a result of such sobering experiences, a re-evaluation of early management approaches and processes has emerged. Three factors have frequently contributed to man- agement implementation failures: Firstly, high de- mands on the scarce human and financial resources of responsible public authorities lead to little com- munication or common purpose between resource ad- ministrators and users. Often, state administrators are forced to limit their field presence to temporary punit- ive ‘missions’ to enforce natural resource management legislation. This practice generally leaves resource users uninformed, uninvolved and alienated from of- ficials and their attempts to manage forest and other natural resources on which local livelihoods depend. Secondly, until the 1990s, management planning made little use of the constructive role local users can play