Community involvement from traditional peoples is transforming the environmental landscape of mangroves in Guanabara Bay. Through solid waste cleanup projects, awareness efforts for fishermen and crab gatherers, and recovery of local fauna and flora, the landscape is being restored in various surrounding municipalities.
In January and February, actions under the Ecological Walks Project by the non-governmental organization Guardians of the Sea collected 4.5 tons of waste in Magé. Artisanal fishermen, crab gatherers, teenagers, and children from the Suruí community and surrounding areas in the Guanabara Bay recôncavo are the direct beneficiaries.
In addition to mangrove cleanup, the Ecological Walks project develops the ecoclub training. In this activity, Payment for Environmental Services (PES) occurs through the use of the Blue Currency, Mangal – an unprecedented social technology. Over two years and two months, the project will engage schools, community spaces, and residents along the margins of the Suruí River in Magé, in the Baixada Fluminense.
Axes
For the president of Guardians of the Sea, Pedro Belga, the Ecological Walks project has unique features and is not limited to picking up trash from the mangrove and sea. The environmentalist highlighted the importance of environmental education work that will take place along both margins of the Suruí River, where resident communities will be encouraged to collect their post-consumer solid waste, not only stopping improper disposal but also gathering those that can be recycled.
Thus, families, children, and youth will be encouraged to exchange these solid wastes for Mangal coins and later exchange the coins for items at a bazaar.
Financial Return
Payment for environmental services, according to Belga, was adopted by Guardians of the Sea in 2001 in the first action carried out in Guanabara Bay, in the Ilha de Itaoca community.
“From then on, we understood the importance of how worthwhile it is to hire these communities to do the cleanup.”
According to him, by including the Payment for Environmental Services clause, communities become sensitized and turn into environmental agents. They later realize that cleanup brings more fish and crab production and better mangrove quality.
According to the environmentalist, mangrove cleanup is already an expected activity, especially by crab gatherers due to the closed season period, which in Rio de Janeiro runs from October 1 to November 30. At that time, crab-ucá cannot be collected, transported, or commercialized. “This aid allowance, paid for environmental services provided by the community, is extremely important.”
The president of the Crab Gatherers and Friends of the Magé Mangrove Association, Rafael dos Santos, highlighted that Community-Based Tourism, another economic activity developed by residents, is also influenced by solid waste cleanup. “A cleaner river and mangrove landscape attracts visitors to the region.”
LimpaOca
The project will also extend Operation LimpaOca, according to coordinator Rodrigo Gaião. Since the first mangrove cleanup actions in the Guapimirim Environmental Protection Area (APA), in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region, in 2012, the action has already collected more than 100 tons of waste. In Ecological Walks, for the first time, it will extend from the mouth to the source of the Suruí River.
Gaião reported that among the collected waste are sofas, television picture tubes, electronic waste, whole pieces of wood like doors, toys, but although there are changes in waste types, plastic or plastic-derived items are always the most frequent.
“[Among the waste], plastic dominates, whether in the form of PET bottles or other types of plastic containers and bags in absurd quantities. Depending on the time it’s been in the mangrove, there’s a large amount of fragments.”
Mangrove cleanup projects around the Guapimirim Environmental Protection Area began in 2000, after a Petrobras pipeline rupture connecting the Duque de Caxias Refinery (Reduc) to the Ilha d’Água terminal on Governador Island, north zone of Rio. Due to the spill, Petrobras paid a R$35 million fine to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) and invested R$15 million in bay revitalization.
Since then, the issue has advanced until cleanup operations began in Guardians of the Sea NGO projects such as From Sea to Mangrove, Guanabara Bay Cleanup Day, Sou do Mangue, Guanabara Verde, LimpaOca, and Uçá.
“It’s not a project that came out of nowhere. On the contrary, it was built with big steps from them, and that values them not only in the territory but in quality of life,” he observed. “There are already quite a few fishermen aware that their own struggle is not in vain.”
Source: Agência Brasil