{"id":65672,"date":"2021-05-11T09:57:06","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T12:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=65672"},"modified":"2024-01-22T11:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:48:06","slug":"river-clean-up-strengthens-land-rights-fight-in-horto-favela","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=65672","title":{"rendered":"River Clean-Up Strengthens Land Rights Fight in Horto Favela"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is part of a <\/em>series<\/em><\/a>\u00a0created in partnership with the <\/em>Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies<\/em><\/a> at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the\u00a0<\/em>Digital Brazil Project<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on human rights and socio-environmental justice in the favelas for RioOnWatch.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since January 2020, residents of the Horto<\/a> favela, in the Botanical Gardens<\/a> neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro\u2019s South Zone<\/a>, has been involved in a new project. The proposed aim of Horto Natureza<\/a>\u00a0is to work towards the revitalization, maintenance, and conservation of the Macacos River, which cuts through the favela and its peripheral areas.<\/p>\n

The project was only recently launched officially, but it has been a long time in the making. Roberto Fonseca, founder of the Horto Natureza project, worked on the Guardi\u00f5es do Rio<\/a> (Guardians of the River) program, in 2001, an initiative which trained community agents to work on the cleaning and conservation of rivers and canals. He explains that, since then, he has felt motivated to take better care of the environment of the community in which he lives. \u201cIn 2001 I was invited along with a few residents of the Horto favela to work for \u2018Guardi\u00f5es do Rio,\u2019 a project by then-mayor C\u00e9sar Maia<\/a>. We needed work and it was a good opportunity. That way, I learned to put in practice everything that my parents had already taught me as a child: to clean our area and take care of what belonged to us. And, to make money doing that, was even better,\u201d says Fonseca.<\/p>\n

For a while now, following accusations that the favela was responsible<\/a> for the pollution of the Macacos River, and the innumerable attempts to displace residents from the area<\/a>, Fonseca has decided to act: \u201cThat was when I started to denounce the fact that the sewage leaks and trash did not come from favela residents but from the buildings and businesses [surrounding it],\u201d he recalls. \u201cWhen the \u2018Guardi\u00f5es do Rio\u2019 project ended, I kept humbly cleaning up my area, but from 2018 onwards, I felt that more was needed; I felt the need to go back to rallying local residents and raising awareness to the fact that we need to take care of what is ours,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

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\nThe outline of the Horto Natureza project began to take form since then. The participants\u2019 objective is to promote the region\u2019s socio-environmental development, through educational actions and professional training. Fonseca explains that the actions developed range from the cleaning and maintenance of the Macacos River to rebuilding house walls and fa\u00e7ades. Some collective actions are also dedicated to the organization of areas destined for waste disposal, with the aim of encouraging adequate collection and sorting.<\/p>\n

The activities developed by the project are directly related to the history of the favela<\/a>, which was born when enslaved people were brought to work on the building of the Botanical Gardens. Over the years, the community has maintained its knowledge and connection to nature<\/a>, transmitted from one generation to the next, with support from workers and teachers in the neighborhood\u2019s schools. Fonseca is a picture of this history. He was born and raised in the Horto favela, learning what he knows through his life experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI studied in all the schools we have in Horto [J\u00falia Kubitschek, Capistrano de Abreu, Camilo Castelo Branco and Manuel Bandeira]. At the Camilo school we had a teacher who taught us everything about the local fauna: how to catch a snake, how to catch an animal without killing it. He was the kind of teacher who spent more time in the forest than in the actual school with students, and that\u2019s where I learned everything I still know today. Mr. Walter! Anyone from Horto knows who Mr. Walter was,\u201d Fonseca explains. He adds: \u201cWhenever we found an insect or an animal that was different, we’d catch it and take it to him so he could classify it and explain about the species. Many of us weren\u2019t even his students, but he always kept his classroom open even for those who weren\u2019t students.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nBehind the project, which was put into practice by Fonseca and other Horto residents, is a long-standing struggle: the community\u2019s right to remain in the area<\/a>. By denouncing where the pollution of the Macacos River and the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon really comes from, the Horto Natureza project seeks to demystify the idea that it is favela residents who are responsible for polluting the Macacos River waters, which flow into the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon.<\/p>\n

After these complaints, the Municipal Environment Secretariat concluded that the water utility CEDAE<\/a> is one of those responsible for the river\u2019s pollution. The company was fined R$1 million<\/a> (US$190,000) for the irregular disposal of sewage in the Macacos River. On January of last year, the company had already been fined for the same reason<\/a>. Besides CEDAE, the disposal of chemical products from a textile plant<\/a> located on the river\u2019s banks has also contributed to polluting the waters. According to Fonseca, after a series of complaints, the company took some measures and resolved the problem.<\/p>\n

Since early 2021, various collective actions to clean the Macacos River have been organized, and Fonseca explains that people from different areas of the Horto favela have taken part: \u201cA few from Grot\u00e3o, a few from Caxinguel\u00ea, and we go down the river cleaning up.\u201d Through these actions, the project aims to establish a dialogue with the Municipal Environment Secretariat of Rio. Eduardo Cavalieri, who is responsible for the secretariat, visited the area on April 17.<\/p>\n

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\nThe project benefits from partnerships with the capoeira<\/em> group of Mestre Mico Preto, an ex-resident of the Horto favela; the company IBS, a franchise specialized in high-performance cycling; as well as the support of community residents and the Horto Florestal Residents’ and Friends’ Association (AMAHOR<\/a>). The Horto Natureza project is seeking more support and undertakes virtual crowdfunding campaigns with national and foreign supporters. In parallel, the project encourages a healthier space for the community by reinforcing the historical links families have with the environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the future, Fonseca dreams of expanding the activities, creating space for community vegetable gardens, for the replanting of seedlings native to the Atlantic Forest, as well as mobilizing his neighbors to take part in the cleaning of the street which gives access to the favela, and in the maintenance of the jackfruit trees which grow on the side of the road. The intention is for the socio-environmental actions of the Horto Natureza project to involve children, teenagers, adults, and the elderly from Horto.<\/p>\n

Once again, the favela shows that its life history is closely linked to the land, and the Horto Natureza project is a snapshot of this relationship.<\/p>\n

About the authors: <\/em>Emerson de Souza is a musician and socio-cultural activist who, since the 1990s, has taken part in cultural and political collectives such as Cambralha and Fome de Educa\u00e7\u00e3o (Hungry for Education). He is currently president of AMAHOR, and a representative of the Horto Museum<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ta\u00edsa Sanches is a post-doctoral researcher in social sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio (PUC<\/a>-Rio) and an activist for housing and the right to the city. She works with the Horto Museum and the Evictions Museum<\/a> projects.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Support\u00a0<\/b>RioOnWatch<\/i><\/b>\u2019s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas\u00a0<\/b>by clicking here.<\/a><\/b><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This article is part of a series\u00a0created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the\u00a0Digital Brazil Project\u00a0on human rights […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":245,"featured_media":65674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1328,329,452],"tags":[371,776,756,258,1396,474,1497,3624,11,188,884,26,894,1675,288,1346,530,10,535,3030,2634,3011,156,471],"writer":[3352,2830],"translator":[3183],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-65672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-by-community-contributors","9":"category-solutions","10":"category-rio20","11":"tag-cedae","12":"tag-cesar-maia","13":"tag-community-organizing","14":"tag-community-solution","15":"tag-criminalization-of-poverty","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-eviction-tactics-misinformation","18":"tag-favela-rivers","19":"tag-forced-evictions","20":"tag-history","21":"tag-horto","22":"tag-housing-rights","23":"tag-jardim-botanico","24":"tag-lagoa","25":"tag-mata-atlantica","26":"tag-museu-do-horto","27":"tag-pollution","28":"tag-real-estate-speculation","29":"tag-sanitation","30":"tag-sense-of-belonging","31":"tag-series","32":"tag-series-human-rights-with-support-from-the-behner-stiefel-center-at-sdsu","33":"tag-south-zone","34":"tag-sustainability","35":"writer-emerson-de-souza","36":"writer-taisa-sanches","37":"translator-constance-malleret"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65672"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=65672"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=65672"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=65672"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=65672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}