Protected Area Establishment and Its Implications for Local Food Security

The establishment of protected areas can reduce access to natural resources for communities that depend on such areas for food, and can thus contribute to food insecurity. We studied the local food systems of two communities that surround a protected area in southern coastal Brazil and the relationship between the protected area and local food security. We randomly selected 34 households to perform 24-hour recalls of food intake and administered a questionnaire that addressed food security. Our key findings were: (1) the consumption of biological resources is based on cultivated, raised, and fished food items, which are locally purchased, produced, or caught by households; (2) food vulnerability is related to household income; (3) there is a greater reliance on resources from the protected area among households with livelihoods that depend on the local environment; (4) the restriction of access to natural resources and the potential replacement of diverse activities that generate food and income influence the diets of the affected families, which can also affect local food security in the long term.