Aerial photo of the area affected by a dam breaking in Mariana, Minas Gerais (Source: Vinícius Mendonça/IBAMA Brazil, 2017, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons).
Water and Heritage: Sustainable Alternatives Based on the Worldviews of South American Communities

Authors

  • Vera Margarida Lessa Catalão University of Brasilia
  • Sergio Augusto de Mendonça Ribeiro International Centre on Water and Transdisciplinarity (CIRAT), ICOMOS (Latin America and Caribbean)

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.2.02

Abstract

Water has a central position in the cosmovision of Native peoples in Brazilian culture. In the Andes, water is sacred and revered. However, in South America, colonial practices and the advance of agriculture and farming following industrialization has had devastating effects on cultures and ecologies. Only in recent decades has awareness started growing that there might be lessons for a sustainable future to be found in Indigenous peoples’ ways of living with water. This article conceptualizes the importance of “nature-based solutions” and illustrates this with examples from Brazil (Minas Gerais) and the Andes. It shows how ancient water practices are still present in local communities and languages, and the authors suggest ways of reinstating and protecting water-related heritage that go beyond the divides between nature and culture, tangible and intangible.

How to Cite

Catalão, V. M. L., & Ribeiro, S. A. de M. (2023). Water and Heritage: Sustainable Alternatives Based on the Worldviews of South American Communities. Blue Papers, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.58981/bluepapers.2023.2.02

Published

2023-11-09

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2023): Water & Heritage for Sustainable Development

Section

challenges, concepts and new approaches

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Vera Margarida Lessa Catalão, Sergio Augusto de Mendonça Ribeiro

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author Biographies

Vera Margarida Lessa Catalão, University of Brasilia

Vera Margarida Lessa Catalão obtained her PhD in Educational Sciences at Paris VIII University and a postdoctoral degree from the University of São Paulo. She is Professor and Researcher at the Graduate Program in Education at the University of Brasilia, where she directs research on human ecology and environmental education, especially on the ecopedagogy of water. Vera is also an advisor to the International Center for Water and Transdisciplinarity – CIRAT and the Ecumenical Water Network – REDA Brazil.

Sergio Augusto de Mendonça Ribeiro, International Centre on Water and Transdisciplinarity (CIRAT), ICOMOS (Latin America and Caribbean)

Sergio Augusto de Mendonça Ribeiro has a bachelor’s degree in social communication, a postgraduate degree in water resources management and a master’s degree in sustainable development from the University of Brasilia. Sergio has been working on sustainability and water conservation for twenty years, having been campaign coordinator and senior analyst at WWF-Brazil for eight years. He has worked as a consultant for institutions such as UNESCO, IICA, OAS and GWP and has authored, and collaborated on, many books. In 2015 he was invited to become Undersecretariat for Water and Climate in the Government of Federal District, Brazil. In May 2018, he became General Director of the International Centre on Water and Transdisciplinarity (CIRAT), a position he still holds, and in 2021 he assumed the position of Vice-President for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Water and Heritage Scientific Committee of ICOMOS.

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