Every Tuesday at dawn, Raildon Supl\u00edcio Maia goes to the market in Macurur\u00e9, in Brazil\u2019s Bahia state, to sell goats. He haggles with buyers to get a good price for the animals, which are reared in the open and roam freely.<\/p>\n
Goats are the main \u2013 and sometimes only \u2013 source of income for the people of Macurur\u00e9, a small town in the Brazilian sert\u00e3o. This rural hinterland in the country\u2019s north-east is known for its dry climate and harsh conditions.<\/p>\n
But earning a living from goat rearing is becoming more difficult as the dry season extends and the native vegetation withers in the Caatinga, a shrubland and thorn forest biome that spans much of the sert\u00e3o, leaving even these hardy animals starved for food.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt used to rain earlier,\u201d says Maia, 54, a short, wiry man with the weathered face of someone who has spent a life outdoors. \u201cNow, there are no cacti, there\u2019s no grass, there\u2019s not enough water. We have to spend what we earn from selling the animals on buying feed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Macurur\u00e9 and four neighbouring municipalities in northern Bahia state are facing a disturbing new climate reality. In 2023, researchers found that a 5,700 sq km area in Brazil\u2019s semi-arid north-east could be classified as an arid region<\/a> \u2013 the first in the country \u2013 a change brought on by decreased rainfall and higher temperatures over a sustained period.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never previously had an arid zone [in Brazil],\u201d says Ana Martins do Amaral Cunha, a researcher at the national centre for monitoring and warning on natural disasters (Cemaden<\/a>), and one of the study\u2019s authors. \u201cIt\u2019s an area in which the climate changed, from semi-arid to arid. That means it got hotter and drier,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that the increase in temperatures is linked to climate change, to anthropogenic global warming, that is to say, the emission of greenhouse gases,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n An aerial view of Raildon Suplicio Maia\u2019s farm. He used to farm crops as well, but \u2018now, when you plant something, it dies,\u2019 he says<\/p>\n Cunha and her colleagues analysed data on rainfall and evapotranspiration \u2013 the transfer of water from soil and plants to the atmosphere \u2013 over four overlapping 30-year periods, from 1960 to 2020. In the area newly classified as arid, average annual rainfall fell below 400mm during the period 1990 to 2020. It\u2019s a climate shift that has taken place over just one generation.<\/p>\n The arid climate could accelerate desertification, which already threatens about 13% of the Caatinga. If steps aren\u2019t taken to prevent or reverse soil degradation, which stems primarily from human activity, the region could become an infertile desert.<\/p>\n Two comparison maps, one from 1961-1990, the other from 1991-2020, showing how the arid area in Brazil\u2019s Caatinga biome has got much bigger. <\/a><\/p>\n In Macurur\u00e9, residents are accustomed to punishing droughts and few are aware of their municipality\u2019s new climate status. But they feel the shift in the unpredictable rainfall and in their lean goats, which struggle to find food in the parched landscape.<\/p>\n These changes should be on our radar. It\u2019s not just a problem in the north-east, it affects the whole countryAna Martins do Amaral Cunha, researcher<\/p>\n \u201cEverything has changed,\u201d says Maia, looking out at the naked shrubs that surround his home. A few steps from the house, a goat gets up on its hind legs to nibble at the scarce leaves.<\/p>\n The rainy season would normally run from year\u2019s end to April. But by early September, it hadn\u2019t rained properly since January, when about a year\u2019s worth of rain fell in the space of a month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to grow corn, beans, potatoes, everything,\u201d Maia says. \u201cNow, when you plant something, it dies.\u201d<\/p>\n Macurur\u00e9 and the surrounding towns are among the poorest in Bahia<\/a>. The decline of subsistence agriculture means the population must spend more on food and animal feed.<\/p>\n About 30 miles north, in the Curral da Pedra quilombo \u2013 a traditional afro-Brazilian community descended from people who escaped enslavement more than 200 years ago \u2013 Marisete dos Santos tells a similar story.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was so much watermelon. Watermelons the size of a little boy,\u201d she says, recalling the abundant crops tended to by her grandfather. The fruits she plants now are small and dry, and the beans she saves for the following planting season don\u2019t germinate.<\/p>\n Although the current situation is more extreme, water scarcity has always been a challenge in the sert\u00e3o. People have long relied on engineered solutions to the problem, such as artesian wells and dams that divert streams into small reservoirs.<\/p>\n In Maria Alves dos Santos\u2019s neighbourhood, a cluster of government-built bungalows a bone-rattling 20-minute drive from the town centre, a white cistern stands outside each home. Water trucks operated by the army routinely pass by to fill the 16,000-litre cisterns, installed as part of a government policy<\/a> launched in the early 2000s to provide water for human consumption.<\/p>\n Families have only recently been provided with a rainwater catchment system for livestock and irrigation. Deep trenches known as barreiro trincheira<\/a> dot the surrounding shrubland. Holding up to 500,000 litres each, they are designed to prevent the rainwater they capture from evaporating in the heat.<\/p>\n Left, Maria Alves dos Santos and right, Marisete Dolores Graciliano dos Santos whose community has recently been provided with barreira-trincheira<\/p>\n Alves dos Santos\u2019s trench hit groundwater and already contains some precious inches of water, even though there has been no rain. She plans to use it for laundry, for her animals and, in the long run, to irrigate cash crops such as coriander and onions. \u201cThings are going to get better now that we have this water,\u201d says the 41-year-old, while her youngest son plays around the edge of the ditch.<\/p>\n Yet these solutions have their limitations, particularly under the new climate conditions. Water tanks such as that used by Alves dos Santos no longer outlast the lengthier, more punishing dry seasons.<\/p>\n The Caatinga is an extraordinary biome, but it\u2019s small and attention reaches us more slowlyGustavo Vieira, Macurur\u00e9\u2019s municipal secretary for agriculture<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know any more how long the water will remain stored. The sources empty quicker, because it\u2019s hotter,\u201d says Gustavo Vieira, who has served as Macurur\u00e9\u2019s municipal secretary for agriculture, environment and livestock for the past 12 years.<\/p>\n The town of just over 7,000 people, which lost 10% of its population<\/a> between 2010 and 2022 as young people left in search of work, is a warning for the rest of Brazil as the climate grows hotter and drier in most of the country.<\/p>\n Brazil\u2019s semi-arid region expanded by 75,000 sq km every decade between 1960 and 2020, the Cemaden study found, while two dry subhumid areas have appeared outside the north-east, in Rio de Janeiro state and the Pantanal wetlands.<\/p>\n \u201cThese changes should also be on our radar. It\u2019s not just a problem in the north-east, it\u2019s a problem that affects the whole country,\u201d says Cunha.<\/p>\n Once the climate has shifted, the change is irreversible, she says. Addressing this starts with climate mitigation measures. Efforts to prevent or reverse desertification are also necessary. The environment ministry, which commissioned the research, will present an updated national policy for fighting desertification in the coming months.<\/p>\n Public policies are slow to reach places such as Macurur\u00e9, says Vieira. \u201cThere has always been a lot of concern with the Amazon, a biome that attracts attention from abroad. The Caatinga is an extraordinary biome, but it\u2019s small and attention reaches us more slowly,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n People have gathered in Macurur\u00e9\u2019s town hall to discuss solutions to their predicament, as part of a government rural development initiative<\/a>. Desalination devices are dismissed as too expensive and polluting. Most would like the water trucks to visit more frequently.<\/p>\n