Upstream, downstream: Fishermen, river and risks in low sao francisco river

Risk perception is one of the pillars of water management. This text proposes to reflect on the meanings of risk in the life experiences of the fishermen of the Lower Sao Francisco River, in a scenario of increasing environmental degradation. A phenomenological approach and method were used, whose object are the meanings attributed to the lived experience. The fishermen were interviewed in the municipalities of Piacabucu, Alagoas, and Caninde de Sao Francisco and Propria, in Sergipe. Three essential structures have been revealed: widespread disbelief; maximization of the sense of risks due to the transposition of river waters; the association between the death of the "Velho Chico" and the cultural death of the riverside communities, as well as their social and economic structures. In this scenario, fishermen place themselves as river watchers, as defenders of this environmental and immaterial heritage.