CORUMBÁ, Brazil — “Lord, go ahead of me and clear my paths, removing every beast, every wild animal, everything that does not come from you; let they be driven away, and may the Lord bless my work. I am in your hands. Walk with me, Father.”

It is 3 a.m. on Baguari Island when Roseli Oliveira says her daily prayers before entering the dark waters of the Pantanal here in Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul state. With her flashlight off so as not to scare away the bait, she submerges up to her waist — sometimes up to her chest — surrounded by caimans, anacondas and stingrays. She has 12 hours of work ahead of her, with the dirty water penetrating her worn-out overalls. But she has no choice: no bait means no income. She is 48 and she has been doing this work for 36 years.

Oliveira is not alone. In riverine communities scattered throughout the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, dozens of women work gathering live bait for fishing. Armed with flashlights and fine-meshed dip nets known as puçás, they catch crabs and small fish such as tuviras (Gymnotus spp.) on riverbanks and bays.

It is manual labor, invisible and dangerous, but also essential to an economy that moves millions and sustains fishing tourism in the region — an industry that rarely acknowledges these female hands.

Free people, invisible work

For the most part, small-scale fishers are distinguished from other workers by their autonomy. They are “free people who avoid paternalism, local power allegiances, employment relations,” says André Luiz Siqueira, director of the NGO Ecoa – Ecology and Action, founded in 1989 in Campo Grande, the Mato Grosso do Sul state capital, to preserve the environment, promote scientific research, and integrate traditional communities in the process.

While fishing is an ancient activity, professional bait collecting became prominent in the Pantanal in the 1980s, when the region opened up to tourism, Siqueira says. Live bait is a staple for fishing here, amateur and, above all, sportfishing, which sustains a growing part of the economy.

In 2002, anthropologist Álvaro Banducci visited bait gatherers’ camps and interviewed them for his doctoral thesis. He found a socioeconomic scene marked by marginalization: 25% of the gatherers were illiterate, and almost 60% had not completed elementary school. His conclusion: “Bait gathering attracts precisely the segment of the population for whom the doors of the job market have been persistently closed.”

Banducci says he encountered some women during his field research, but the job at the time was predominantly male. Today, 24 years later, the reality is different in some Pantanal communities: women have taken over bait gathering — as well as political and social leadership — while men turned to piloting tour boats and managing lodges.

Today, according to the 2023 General Registry of Fishing Activity, of the 12,319 people registered as professional fishers in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, which includes the Pantanal bait gatherers, 5,026 are women, or about 40% of the total.

Dirty water, female bodies

Elizete Garcia da Costa Soares, better known as Zezé, lives in the Porto da Manga community, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Corumbá, at the intersection between the Paraguay River and the Pantanal Park Road, with a population of some 250 people in 47 families.

At 61, Zezé has worked as a bait gatherer for 34 years. She has entered the Pantanal waters countless times, most of them without protective equipment, just like her colleagues. “It causes a lot of gynecological diseases,” she says. “All the women have [vaginal discharge], since the water is dirty.”

This happens because of women’s susceptibility to urinary tract infections, vaginal infections and other gynecological illnesses. Siqueira says that during drought periods, organic waste accumulates in the bays and corixos, the temporary streams that connect rivers and floodplains. This accumulation, or eutrophication, accelerates the growth of algae, fungi and bacteria. For the women to stop working, however, is not an option. Since they are self-employed, “every time you fail to go to the field, there’s less food at home,” Siqueira points out.

Oliveira remembers what it was like when she started, 36 years ago. “We didn’t have any equipment; it was just our clothes, a dugout canoe, an oar, a small container, and willpower.”

A solution only came in 2011, when Ecoa found a company in neighboring Paraná state that made waterproof vulcanized overalls and high-resistance boots. In addition to keeping the wearer dry, the suit protected against animals and was flexible enough for the wearer to get on and off a boat without ripping it.

Then, the Labor Prosecution Service of Mato Grosso do Sul established a partnership: revenues from labor fines would fund the purchase of these personal protective equipment (PPE), which cost 290 reais ($58) each. For 15 years, Ecoa has received these funds, purchased the suits, and distributed them to bait gatherers. Mongabay contacted the Labor Prosecution Service for details about the program, but received no response by the time this story was originally published on Feb. 11, 2026.

However, the suit’s useful life is one year at most. So while the partnership has been successful, it is not always enough. Zezé, for example, has not received a new suit in two years. After her old one wore out, she used her savings to buy a new one for 350 reais ($70).

For Zezé, wearing a suit has protected her against sanitary diseases as well as animal attacks — in her case, a piranha bite: “It cut the net, escaped and came straight for my leg. It bit me; luckily it only got the overalls. If it had caught my leg, it would have torn a piece off.”

Oliveira also acknowledges the dangers of the work, and says she “tried [to quit] several times but was not successful. I realized that there was no other option. I had to support my children the best way I could.” She started working as a bait gatherer at age 12 alongside her parents, and only attended school on a Youth and Adult Education program to a sixth-grade level, but didn’t even finish it.

Pennies for a life

Bait gatherers work in groups of at least two people. Oliveira’s boat fits four. When fishing is good, they talk. When it’s not, they stay quiet, “just killing mosquitoes, because there are a lot of them at night,” she says. They carry flashlights, which are off most of the time. To know if there are animals around, the rule is clear: pay attention. “We hear noise, movement in the water, in the vegetation. We already know and we feel it.” If they sense a jaguar, they leave. “It’s better to let it pass. After it’s gone, we come back.”

The precarious nature of the work contrasts with the figures generated by the wider fishing industry that it supports. Sportfishing, for example, has grown by 30-40% in the last two years in Mato Grosso alone, according to data from the State Department of Economic Development.

In August 2021, a workshop was held by Brazilian think tank IPÊ (Institute for Ecological Research), the U.S.-based Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, and the Pantanal branch of Embrapa, the Brazilian government’s agricultural research arm. The workshop yielded a report, “Livestock, fishing and ecotourism in the Pantanal,” that summarized important figures to understand the economic dimensions of the biome.

The report mapped 142 lodges that specialize in sportfishing in the two Pantanal states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso. Around 220,000 tourists visit the biome every year specifically to fish. In Mato Grosso do Sul, sportfishing generates $16.8 million per year, while a single stretch of the Cuiabá River in Mato Grosso yields $1.8 million.

Oliveira, a single mother of four daughters, all working as bait gatherers, explains how they make a living from their work: the owner of a boat hotel may order 800 pieces of baits, which the women then spend up to a week working all night to collect, depending on the season. “If we’re about 200 short, I talk to my niece, we collect them together and mix them in.” The total monthly income from mother and four daughters is around 1,500-2,000 reais ($300-$400). That works out to less than the minimum wage of 1,621 reais ($325) for a single person. “We share everything,” Oliveira says.

Zezé is realistic about it. “I can’t speak of income because there are good times with lots of tourists, but when there aren’t [many] here, we make do with little.” There are no formal contracts between buyers and sellers, only verbal agreements.

Bait gatherers in riverine communities compete with each other and with urban vendors, and because they live far from the city, they need to lower their prices in order to sell. “It’s like a competition. If we raise [prices] too much here, no one will buy from us. Because they also sell it in the city,” Oliveira says.

Hotels and tourist lodges buy bait at 0.50-0.70 reais (10-14 U.S. cents) apiece, and resell it to tourists for up to four times that price — a 300% profit. “And then it creates internal conflicts, fights, because a neighbor undermines our effort to maintain a decent minimum price,” Siqueira says.

Closed season and debt

Between November and February, there is a closed season in force, when fishing is banned to allow aquatic species to breed. Bait gatherers, and the entire category of small-scale fishers, are meant to receive unemployment insurance during this time that is the equivalent of one month’s minimum wage. This season, however, as of January 2006, “No one has been paid so far,” Zezé says.

A 2025 executive order transferred the management of closed season insurance from the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) to the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE), causing further delays in payments. On Jan. 12, the Mato Grosso state legislature released a note stating that its members went to the national capital, Brasília, to demand that the insurance be paid to fishers.

In their note, they describe the situation: “Thousands of fishing workers have not received any installment of the benefit yet, even though they rigorously complied with the mandatory cessation of activities during the closed season, which is crucial for fish reproduction.” There was still no payment by the time this story was originally published on Feb. 11.

Reached for comment, the Ministry of Labor and Employment said that “no delay was caused by the transfer from INSS.” According to the ministry, payments for the period after Nov. 1, when management became the responsibility of the MTE, was to be made “in February.”

In a statement released in January 2026, Minister Luiz Marinho said he was discussing the issue with Congress members and fishers’ leaders. “In total, approximately 50,000 small-scale fishers have already submitted the Annual Report on the Exercise of Fishing Activity (REAP) to prove they continue exercising the activity and therefore to maintain their licenses. The agency is currently cross-referencing information to close the lot and pay the benefits by the end of February.”

The statement added that “regarding payments relating to periods prior to November 1, 2025, when the benefit was managed by INSS, the situation remains under discussion within the federal government. For closed seasons starting between April 1, 2015, and October 31, 2025, the responsibility for receiving documents, processing information, and qualifying beneficiaries remains with INSS.”

The ministry did not explain how it expects fishers to support their families in those months without payment, or whether there would be monetary correction or compensation for those who incurred debts during that period. The General Fishing Registry prohibits registered fishers from engaging in other paid activities during the closed season.

Mongabay contacted INSS to clarify the lack of budget and the fraud investigations mentioned by the MTE, but received no response by the time this story was first published.

According to Siqueira, even when benefits are paid regularly, the closed season is also the period of greatest indebtedness for fishers, since the insurance does not always consider their specific needs.

For example, to withdraw the money, Oliveira needs to travel from her home on Baguari Island to Corumbá — seven hours by motorboat. “The round trip takes 100 liters [26 gallons] of gasoline. Then you get that money and you have to buy fuel, and with what’s left you’ll buy things. It’s not enough for much,” she says. “And there’s no supermarket here, no health unit. There’s nothing. It’s just Pantanal.”

During these months, families turn to farming, doing maintenance work on their homes, and repairing their boats. To supplement their income, some women work in beekeeping while their husbands migrate to Corumbá in search of construction jobs.

But the General Fishing Registry’s prohibition on them working in non-fishing jobs mean they are doing this work informally, leaving them without protection and, “in the eyes of the government, they are illegal,” Siqueira says.

Faith and persistence

In 1912, the centuries-old riverside community of Porto Esperança, in Corumbá, was the terminus of the Northwest Brazil Railway. The station boosted the local economy, drawing in new residents and providing connections with the rest of the country. Everything changed in 1995, when the passenger train service was decommissioned. A large part of the population migrated, leaving behind only people with deeper roots in the territory.

Those who remained faced isolation. They had no electricity, no adequate medical care, no quality public education. On Feb. 1, 2000, they created the Association of Residents and Friends of the Porto Esperança District, now presided over by 35-year-old Ingrid Oliveira (no relation to Roseli Oliveira, the bait gatherer).

Ten years ago, when she arrived at the community, Ingrid Oliveira was surprised by the leading role played by female workers in bait gathering. Today, about six women, most of them elderly, work as gatherers in Porto Esperança, where tourism accounts for 90% of the local economy.

Oliveira is not a bait collector, but says she admires these women, and that what motivates them in the face of so much danger is clear: “They do it so that their children won’t face what they went through. They want to give them a better life, so they can leave this place and have better education in the city.”

Every day, before leaving, Roseli Oliveira repeats the same prayer for protection. For 36 years, she has been praying and facing nights, cold waters, caimans, snakes and uncertainty in order to support her four daughters. In this routine that mixes pride and indignation, bait gatherers remain invisible, even though every sportfishing hook carries her hands’ work.

Banner image: Dona Dinha, a Pantanal bait gatherer. Image courtesy of Raquel Alves/Ecoa.

This story was first published here in Portuguese on Feb. 11, 2026.

Citation:

Banducci Junior, A. (2002). “Nativos” em trânsito: Catadores de iscas e o turismo da pesca no Pantanal Mato-grossense (Doctoral dissertation, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil). Retrieved from https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8134/tde-25042023-115343/en.html

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Xavier Bartaburu Editor

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EcosystemsFishFreshwaterFreshwater FishIndigenous PeoplesWaterBrazil

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