In the Brazilian northeast, a community that survives by gathering wild fruit is threatened with extinction. They are mostly black and native women who pick mangaba and for generations have lived by collecting this fruit that grows naturally on the Brazilian coast in the state of Sergipe. The gathering of mangaba is the basis of livelihood of more than 5 thousand people in situations of social vulnerability, and the construction of a bridge changed the economic profile of the region and real estate speculation and the devastation of green areas and ecosystems has put pressure on the gathers who struggle to maintain their strongest traditions. Each year these women pick 280 tons of mangaba and sustain an intense network of small businesses at fairs and markets. Nevertheless, these traditional communities are threatened by landowners who started to prohibit collection of the fruit, which could lead to hunger many families who depend on gathering mangaba to survive.

In Sergipe, 90% of the mangaba is found in areas of native forest, where the traditional populations gather the fruit as a means of survival. The privatization of the spaces where there are mangabeiras and deforestation are decreasing the collection areas. An entire way of life in harmony with the environment could disappear with the devastation of the natural ecosystems, which are being replaced by subdivisions, industrial shrimp raising, sugar cane crops and a real state development (vacation homes, condos, hotels).

The farms and lands where gathering had been permitted have been increasingly and rapidly fenced in. The attempt by the Mangaba pickers to organize their search for lands where they can continue to gather alerted the large land owners to agrarian reform. With fear of losing their lands, farms that until recently were nothing more than large open areas with lots of native mangabeira trees were fenced-in, and guards posted to keep the pickers away.