Lisbon’s jobless turn muddy clams into cash

Every day, hundreds of unemployed sift through the mud along the Tagus River in the Lisbon suburbs for clams they can sell to keep the effects of Portugal’s economic crisis at bay.
“Here, it’s only the jobless,” says 34-year-old Carla as she rummages under a blazing sun near the sweeping arc of the Vasco da Gama bridge, one of Europe’s longest and a symbol of the prosperity Portugal aspires to.
The former postal worker is among a crowd of academics, engineers and others who now comb the mud — casualties of the eurozone crisis who have lost their jobs to budget cuts and mass layoffs.
With unemployment running at more than 15 percent, Portugal is in the throes of an unprecedented financial crisis that last month saw large crowds take to the streets of Lisbon and other cities to protest against austerity.
But the austerity program is only expected to get tougher, as Portugal strives to meet pledges given to international creditors in return for the 78-billion-euro ($ 100-billion) rescue package it received last year.
“There are more and more clam pickers, at least five times more than a year ago,” says Carla’s boyfriend Pedro Safara, a former mechanic with national airline TAP whose retired father also gathers clams.
Pedro and Carla recently lost their unemployment benefits, making the monthly 400-some euros they each earn selling clams their sole income.
But this windfall can vanish in one fell swoop if the police take action, as the practice is highly regulated and illegal clam-picking is subject to penalties.
Only around 30 boats are registered and allowed to operate in the Tagus River, leaving amateur clam pickers at risk of a 500-euro fine. Last year, the police seized 70 tons of clams harvested without permission.
Fortunately for the amateurs, police rarely clamp down on individuals digging through the mud, targeting instead those who rent small boats to trawl for a better harvest.
Once harvested, the illegal clams are subject to no sanitary controls and buyers rarely question their origin.
“They say these clams are toxic, but no one’s ever complained,” Carla says while sifting through the mud with a small pickaxe.
The amateurs say some 50 small restaurants are always willing to buy the clams, a staple of Portuguese cuisine and a key ingredient of the well-known pork dish Porco a Alentejana.
Amateur pickers sell the clams for between 2.5 and four euros per kilogram — much less expensive than the market, where the price often tops 10 euros.
Carla, whose three brothers all live in the Netherlands, says the trade has allowed her to stay in Portugal.
“I never really imagined a day when I would have to gather clams to survive. But if I hadn’t found this, I would have definitely had to emigrate,” she said.
More than 120,000 Portuguese leave the country each year due to unemployment, amid an economy that is forecast to contract three percent this year.
For those who have stayed, large anti-austerity protests have become the order of the day.
On Sept. 15, hundreds of thousands marched across the country, in what was perhaps Portugal’s largest demonstration since the 1974 Carnation Revolution, which ousted the authoritarian Estado Novo (New State) and ushered in democracy.
Still searching for clams, Carla evoked the memory of that era: “For the country to change, we might have to stage another revolution.”