Looking back and looking forward: Exploring livelihood change and resilience building in a Brazilian coastal community

• Livelihood diversification was an important component of resilience.
• Self-organization, collective action and agency were important to deal with crisis.
• Trade-offs were related to the geographical isolation, protected areas and tourism.

In Brazil, as in many other tropical countries, coastal communities have been dealing with a complex dynamics of change, mostly related to the degradation of ecosystems, growing tourism and changing government policies, with consequences for natural resources conservation and management. Understanding how these communities are dealing with such change and the trade-offs provide insights for building resilience. In this paper, we investigate how a Caiçara community (traditional group of mixed heritage) has been dealing with social-ecological changes over the last 50 years, and how these changes have affected the livelihood resilience. Livelihood pathway analysis revealed how the system behaved historically and how the past dynamics influenced and may continue to influence resilience building. In face of challenges and disturbances, the coping and adaptive strategies used by this community have helped to maintain the diversity of livelihood options and ecosystem services, which contributed to resilience. Self-organization, collective action and political agency were important components to deal with crises mainly related to territorial disputes concerning overlap with protected areas. The trade-offs in social-ecological system dynamics were related to the geographical isolation of the community (located on an island), the creation of protected areas, and the use of tourism income as a livelihood strategy. Over the years, social cohesion has weakened due to increased economic rationality and conflicts – which may undermine social-ecological system resilience in the future.