NITERÓI, Brazil, January 9 (IPS) – “We moved from a context of socio-environmental exclusion to one in every of environmental justice,” stated Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Area Program which led Brazil’s largest nature-based options challenge.
Having received nationwide and world awards, the Orla Piratininga Park (POP) constructed 35,000 sq. meters of filtering gardens and improved the water high quality of the Piratininga lagoon, within the oceanic south of Niterói, a municipality in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, throughout the Guanabara Bay.
The challenge, named after the late Brazilian environmentalist Alfredo Sirkis, started in 2020, and goals to environmentally restore an space of 680,000 sq. meters on the lagoon’s shores whose waters cowl an space of two.87 sq. kilometers.
On the coronary heart of the challenge are the remedy techniques for the waters of the Cafubá, Arrozal, and Jacaré rivers, which stream into the lagoon. Sedimentation and air pollution had been deteriorating the water useful resource and the standard of life within the surrounding space.
A weir, which receives the river stream, a sedimentation pond, which removes stable waste, and the filtering gardens make up the chain that partially cleans the water earlier than releasing it into the lagoon, lowering environmental impacts, in a course of referred to as phytoremediation.
The gardens are small reservoirs the place aquatic vegetation referred to as macrophytes are planted, which feed on the vitamins from the air pollution, defined Heloisa Osanai, the biologist specialised in environmental administration of the Sustainable Oceanic Area Program (PRO Sustainable).
Three polluted water remedy stations are within the neighborhoods crossed by the rivers, based mostly on pure sources, “with out using electrical power, chemical compounds, or concrete,” defined Castro, the coordinator of PRO Sustainable.
Moreover, some macrophytes produce ample flowers. Solely native Brazilian species are planted, with precedence given to biodiversity, added Osanai.
Together with these water remedy techniques, 10.8 kilometers of motorbike paths, 17 recreation facilities, a 2,800-square-meter Eco-Cultural Heart, and different environmental works with social objectives had been constructed.
The bike path, typically alongside a pedestrian sidewalk, caters to bodily and leisure actions however can also be a think about defending the lagoon shoreline by blocking city occupation and actual property invasions, clarify the officers.
The realm the place the water system was constructed on the mouth of the Cafubá river was extremely degraded by an open-air dump and flooding. A reformed “belt channel,” in some sections additionally strengthened by macrophyte islands, corrected the waterlogging.
On the opposite aspect of the lagoon, 3.2 kilometers of bioswales enhance the drainage of rainwater. They’re trenches with pipes, stones, and different supplies, plus vegetation, that speed up drainage and forestall pollution from reaching the lagoon.
The primary consequence, in accordance with Castro, reconciled the native inhabitants with the lagoon. The previous homes that “turned their backs on the lagoon” are joined by new buildings going through the water, some with balconies overlooking the brand new panorama, stated Mariah Bessa, the engineer accountable for hydraulic points of the challenge.
The native inhabitants was extremely concerned within the design and building of the brand new environmental and social services that reworked the lagoon shoreline. This led to new attitudes, similar to not littering on the bottom or within the water and stopping others from doing so, in accordance with Castro.
The Ecocultural Heart promotes everlasting environmental schooling, with movies, kids’s video games, audiovisual sources, and a big area for visits and courses.
“We moved from a context of socio-environmental exclusion to one in every of environmental justice,” stated the coordinator of PRO Sustainable.
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