The salt extracting activities in the northeastern coast of Rio de Janeiro state have seen better days. Its slow decline started in the 1960´s and only recently has shown signs of reversal.  Derelict structures are all over to be explored. The whole region is basically a desert, since the areas around the lagoons have seen no other use in ages, and the salterns demand a very small workforce, around 5 people per unit, leading to a very peculiar land occupation of the area, with disperse, very small urban nuclei.