TOWARD COMMUNITY-BASED WATERSHED MANAGEMENT IN SANTO ANDRÉ, SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

SUMMARY. Damage to environmentally sensitive areas caused by human settlement is a problem experienced in most large cities in developing countries. This problem is often associated with the absence of appropriate development guidelines. This paper looks at the approach taken by the CIDA-funded project Community-Based Watershed Management in Santo André, a municipality in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA) in Brazil. It considers the problems arising from uncontrolled settlement in environmentally sensitive areas and the measures currently being adopted to address those problems. The paper focuses on the participatory approach to the project and the aspects of the planning process involved in developing a community-based watershed management framework. Also included is a brief summary of activities undertaken in order to help understand the processes being followed as the project progresses.

I.

THE PARTICIPATORY PLANNING PROCESS

A legalistic approach towards environmental management has been shown to be ineffective in Brazil. This is consistent with experience in other countries. Master Plans and legal rules are often simply ignored, or are so out of touch with actual development taking place on the ground, that their effective implementation is impossible anyway.1 It is in this context that the municipality of Santo André has embarked on the design and implementation of a communitybased watershed management (CBWM) framework, which represents a fundamental change in the way planning and watershed management has traditionally been conducted in Brazilian cities and states. These innovations can be supported by recent environmental legislation, which sets the parameters within which municipalities can formulate and enact plans to manage watershed areas under their jurisdiction. An important element of the approach being used in Santo André is that the CBWM framework is the outcome of the planning process. This is in direct contrast to Master Planning, where the plans 1

The political gyrations involved in developing the 1992 Master Plan for São Paulo – and which was never effectively implemented anyway – are described in Singer, P. 1993. São Paulo’s Master Plan, 1989-92: The politics of urban space. Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars: Washington DC. For an international perspective on problems with Master Planning, see Rondinelli, D. (1993). Development projects as policy experiments. Routledge, London, pages 90-117; Devas, N. (1993), “Evolving approaches” in N. Devas

2 or frameworks are the starting point, into which ‘reality’ on the ground is then supposed to fit. A method is being created for a community-based watershed management, which promotes: 1) comprehensive assessment (environmental, social, economic) of options for watershed use (the vision) and options for implementing the vision 2) participatory processes for determining vision and implementation mechanisms. The steps involved in the initiation, design, implementation, and operation and maintenance of the project – with monitoring and feedback of information to earlier steps of the process outlined in other watershed management frameworks – are often cited as the key elements of watershed management.2 Typically, the process begins with the identification of a problem and leads to a decision to prepare a project or program plan. Plan formulation leads to a feasibility study that provides the basis for a decision to implement the project, and is followed by detailed design of the watershed management plan. Implementation begins with installation of watershed resource utilization and management practices based on detailed designs. This often involves substantial capital expenditures and may take several years. This is followed by an ongoing program in which watershed resources are utilized and maintained. Underpinning each of these stages of watershed management is a planning process, indicated by the shaded blocks in Figure 1. Before attempting to formulate the management plan for the watershed, there is a crucial – and often neglected – initial planning process that needs to be undertaken. This is the planning of the CBWM planning process itself. As a first step, then, it is necessary to plan the planning process (n-1). Decisions made at this stage will guide the next process, which focuses on substantive planning, or, in this case, planning the watershed (n). While this paper will focus only on these first two stages, a similar process needs to be undertaken when planning the implementation of the watershed management plan (n+1), and planning the ongoing operation and management of the watershed (n+2)3. It is important to note, though, that participation makes the whole process more transparent, the process designers and implementers accountable to citizens, stakeholders, and, ideally the product more acceptable, implementable and implemented. Throughout the process, participation is understood as a key element in the adequate development of each stage.

and C. Rakodi (Eds). Managing fast growing cities: new approaches to urban planning and management in the developing world. Longman, Singapore, pages 72-73. 2 See Hufschmidt, M. M. (1986) “A conceptual framework for watershed management”. In Easter W.K. et al. (Eds.). Watershed Resources Management: an integrated framework with studies from Asia and the Pacific. Studies in Water Policy and Management, No.10. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press; Frederick A. Praeger Publisher. 3 The stages applicable to any planning process are outlined in Boothroyd, P. (1991) Developing community planning skills: applications of a seven step model. Centre for Human Settlements, University of British Columbia, Vancouver

3 Figure 1. Planning each stage of the watershed management process

PROCESS PLANNING Plan the planning

n-1

INITIATE

SUBSTANTIVE PLANNING Plan the watershed management

n

DESIGN monitor

IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING Plan the implementation

n+1

IMPLEMENT monitor

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE PLANNING Plan the ongoing management

OPERATE & MAINTAIN monitor

n+2

4 At each stage, the planning process can be broken down into a series of steps. These are described in the first column of Figure 2.4 The generic questions that can be asked at each step within the respective Process Planning (n-1) or sSubstantive Planning (n) stages of any planning process are listed below. Table 1. Planning the planning process (n-1) and planning the watershed planning process (n) n-1 Planning the planning process 1. DEFINE THE PROBLEM (why intervene at all?)

What is the problem that requires an intervention?

What is the problem that requires an intervention?

2. DEFINE THE PLANNING TASK (what is the realm of planning?) 3. IDENTIFY THE GOALS (what do we want to achieve?)

What do we need to plan?

What do we need to plan?

What do we want to achieve for the whole n process?

4. STATE THE FACTS (what are the driving and restraining forces relevant to reaching our goals?)

What are the facts relevant to designing an n process that meets the above goals?

5. GENERATE IDEAS (what are some creative ideas for achieving the goals?)

What are the kinds of activities that could contribute to achieving the goals for the n process? What are the mutually exclusive options for achieving our goals for the n process?

What should the planning framework ultimately achieve (in the long-term)? What should the result of the n planning process be (medium term objective)? What kind of information needs to be collected? How will information be collected? How will information be organized? What are some ideas for the broad direction that management of the watershed could take?

6. GENERATE OPTIONS (how do we organize these possibilities into practicable options/elements?) 7. PROS & CONS, AND FEASIBILITY (To what extent do each of these options/elements address the planning goals, and are they feasible?) 8. DEFINE THE RESULTS OF THE PLANNING PROCESS (what is the result or product emerging from the planning process?)

4

n Planning the CBWM framework

Boothroyd, P. 1991. ibid

What are the categories into which we can organize ideas into options/elements? By whom?

What are the pros and cons of each option and what tools could be used to assess their feasibility?

How do each of the options separately and collectively contribute to the CBWM goals?

What is our decision about how the n planning will proceed?

What is the result of the planning process?

5

a. Planning the planning process (n-1) The purpose of the planning the planning process (n-1) is to articulate a process for planning the watershed management(n). When considering what we wanted to achieve by formulating the watershed management plan in Santo André, and given the failure of previous top-down approaches, it was decided that the planning process must be essentially participatory. Furthermore, it was stipulated that it be efficient, creative, realistic, comprehensive and that it should have a visible impact. To meet the goal of formulating a clear process for planning the watershed, the key forces that could impact on the achievement of the goal for the planning the planning process (n-1) need to be articulated. Institutional complexity was a particularly important consideration. Although there were many stakeholders to be considered including state, metropolitan, municipal, regional, NGO, CBO, and watershed resident interest groups, there were, at the initiation of the planning process, a number of mechanisms that had already formalized interaction and participation within and between state and civil society interests. Some of these provided an opportunity upon which to build and further develop participatory mechanisms. For example, watershed sub-committees provided an opportunity for and institutions such as the Budget Councils provided a mechanism to ensure inclusion of marginalized communities in the planning process. Workshops, pilot projects, public meetings, ideas fairs, training courses, task force (eg. SEMASA/ABC/Santo Andre), as well as Budget council input on draft watershed management plans can all be included in a wide range of opportunities to help achieve the goals for the whole n process. The pros and cons, as well as the feasibility of each option, were then assessed using tools such as goals achievement matrices, and planning balance sheets. The result of this process of planning-the-planning process was a plan for how the community-based watershed management (CBWM) framework could be formulated. Having identified the goals and principles to guide the whole substantive planning process phase, including the specific processes whereby stakeholders would be involved in the formulation of the CBWM plan, it is now possible to move into the substantive planning phase - i.e. planning the community based watershed management plan for Santo André.

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II.

THE CONTEXT AND THE PROBLEM

a.

Regional Context: The São Paulo Metropolitan Area (SPMA)

São Paulo is Brazil’s largest metropolitan area, and is one of the world’s three largest urban agglomerations. Accommodating an estimated 18 million people, the SPMA consists of 39 municipalities, and covers 8,051 km2. From a population growth rate averaging nearly 5 per cent annually from 1960 to 1980, it has slowed to 1.9 per cent annual growth in the 1980s and 1990s. Although the average SPMA population density (8,482 people per km2) is high when compared with average densities for other Brazilian cities, there are still large expanses of unsettled land on the metropolitan fringe, which are the focus of rapid new settlement. In the 1980s, population growth within environmental protection areas, mostly located in peripheral regions, was three times greater than for the city of São Paulo. Currently, population growth remains slowest (1.2 per cent annual growth) in São Paulo city, as compared with growth rates averaging 3.2 per cent per year in the periphery.5 Further expansion of the SPMA is constrained on the north and south by major water basins that are the sources of most of the urban water supply for the metropolitan region. Urban growth during the 1990s has been largely in a southerly direction toward the Guarapiranga Sub-Basin. It is within this sub-basin and the adjacent Billings-Tamanduatei Sub-Basin that the Guarapiranga and Billings Reservoirs, which provide 40 per cent of the SPMA’s water, are located. Population in the Guarapiranga Sub-Basin is growing at 7 per cent per year, and has reached 580,000 people, two-thirds of whom are located close to the reservoir itself. The population living in the BillingsTamanduatei Sub-Basin close to the Billings Reservoir, which provides water for 1.2 million people, amounts to approximately 350,000 people. Of these, about 130,000 people live in favelas6 without basic services. Wastewater, sewage, and solid waste from these areas are discharged directly into the reservoirs. The main polluting source of waterways is domestic effluent, which accounts for two-thirds of contamination, as 90 per cent of sewage is not treated.7 The water quality of the three most important rivers serving the SPMA and their associated reservoirs is seriously affected by urban sewage and industrial wastewater discharges. Approximately 40m3/second of raw sewage and industrial effluent are discharged into the Tietê River, which has become almost entirely devoid of oxygen. High levels of lead and mercury have

5

Jacobi, P. 1997. Environmental problems in São Paulo. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Vol. 5, No. 3, pages 131-139; Bartone, C.R. 1996. Urban environmental management strategies and action plans: case studies from São Paulo, Brazil and Kumasi, Ghana. World Bank: Washington, D.C., 5. 6 Favela is the Portuguese name for slums and squatter settlements. 7 Jacobi, P. 1997. Ibid. page 136.

7 been detected in several of the rivers in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area.8 The reservoirs, on the other hand, contain significant amounts of dissolved oxygen as well as toxic substances, and continue to be polluted. Prior to the democratization process in Brazil during the mid-1980s, development planning was strongly grounded in highly centralized, top-down methods, with little or no public participation. In the SPMA, planning has historically relied heavily on tools such as Master Planning. However, not only did the tools fail to provide a framework to adequately guide the rapid urban growth occurring throughout the metropolitan area, but they inadequately dealt with the political complexity associated with a multi-stakeholder planning process. As a consequence, none of the Master Plans formulated for São Paulo had been successfully implemented. Eventually, the first Master Plan for SPMA to be formally approved was the “Plano Metropolitano da Grande São Paulo: 1994-2010.”9 Over the last three decades, the haphazard and uneven growth of the metropolitan area has been exacerbated by high levels of legal and institutional complexity and a reliance on legal regulatory mechanisms to control growth patterns. For instance, federal and state laws stipulate strict restrictions on land development in the Alto-Tietê Basin, which encompasses a number of subbasins within which the SPMA is located.10 Consequently, many landowners do not develop their properties, thereby leaving them vulnerable to invasion by settlers and the construction of new favelas. Favelas are not, however, the only polluters of the reservoirs. Federal and state laws prohibit municipalities from discharging wastes within the catchment area of the BillingsTamanduatei Sub-Basin. Although upstream municipalities are sewered and have solid waste collection services, compliance with these laws is impossible because neighbouring municipalities outside the catchment area have passed local bylaws prohibiting the importation of wastes from other jurisdictions. As a consequence, an estimated 20 per cent (more than 4,000 tons) of municipal, industrial, and hazardous wastes are unprocessed each day by the formal collection and disposal system, resulting in health and sanitation problems, particularly in lowincome areas.

8

Leitmann, J. 1994. Rapid Urban Environmental Assessment. Lessons from cities in the developing world, volume 2 - tools and outputs. UNDP/UNCHS/World Bank Urban Management Programme, 15. World Bank, Washington, D.C., 130., Bartone. C.R. ibid. 9 EMPLASA. 1994. Plano Metroplitano da Grande São Paulo 1994-2010. Governo d Estado de São Paulo, Secretaria de Estado de Planejamento e Gestão, Empresa Metropolitana de Planejamento da Grande São Paulo SA. 10 The other sub-basins are Juqueri-Cantareira, Alto Tietê-Cabeceiras, Guarapiranga and Pinheiros-Pirapora.

8 Figure 2. Santo André and ABC within São Paulo Metropolitan Area

São Paulo Metropolitan Area - SPMA São Paulo State

SPMA

Santo André Municipality ABC Region São Paulo Municipality

0

10 5

20 km

b. Santo André Municipal Area The city of Santo André, founded under that name in 1938, is located on the fringe of the SPMA. Santo André covers approximately 175,000 km2, with an estimated population of 665,000 people. Together with the other cities of the so-called Greater ABC Region (Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, São Caetano, Diadema, Mauá, Ribeirão Pires, Rio Grande da Serra - see Figure 3, above), it has, since the 1950s, played an important role in the economic development of the SPMA. As part of the Brazilian import substitution strategy in the 1950s, the car industry was established in the region, making it one of the most important development centres in the country. Despite the strong economic base, the city of Santo André, and the SPMA as a whole, have been faced with the decentralization of some of its main industries to the interior of the state of São Paulo. This has resulted in a loss of industrial jobs and consequent shifts in population migration patterns, settlement patterns, and the growth of informal sector economic activities. In response to these changes, Santo André plays a central role in the powerful Council of the Greater ABC Region, an informal consortium of the political leadership of the seven cities of the ABC Region. The purpose of the consortium is to develop coordinated, proactive strategies for the region that will preempt the negative impacts of macroeconomic restructuring currently underway in Brazil, and maintain the ABC Region’s dominance as an economic centre. Whereas population growth rates in Santo André averaged 5.5 per cent per year between 1960 and 1970, this growth rate had decreased to 2.82 per cent per year between 1970 and 1980, and

9 down to 0.97 per cent per year between 1980 and 1990.11 In addition to natural population growth (3.5 per cent per annum), current population growth is largely attributable to people relocating to Santo André from areas outside of the SPMA. Santo André has inherited the legacy of rapid, but poorly managed, urban growth. Land use development has historically taken place in a haphazard, chaotic fashion without any systematic integrated planning. The majority of new low-income housing construction has been self-help in nature, resulting in the growth of favelas and informal settlements. Not only do these settlements violate municipal land use and environmental legislation, but they are unhealthy living environments with low levels of physical and social services, particularly sewerage treatment and garbage collection. Although the volume of water supply (98 per cent), solid waste collection (93 per cent), and sewage (95 per cent) services provided to the municipal population as a whole are high, favelas are the areas in which service levels are lowest. Approximately 10 per cent of Santo André’s population live in slums––the municipality has identified 123 slums within its jurisdiction, where an estimated 67,000 people live. The population density within these favelas can reach as high as 800 people per hectare. Given the failure to successfully implement any Master Plans in SPMA in the past, the dominant approach to control human settlement was via a reliance on restrictive legislation. This approach, however, has failed, and settlement has continued irrespective of legal restrictions. As a consequence, more than 30 per cent of the SPMA population live in unregulated housing. Not only are an estimated 4,000 families living in “extremely high risk conditions”––under powerlines, near a solid waste dump from which combustible gases are emitted, on geologically unstable land, and on land subject to flooding––but increasing numbers are also settling in environmentally sensitive watershed areas. c. Santo André Environmental Protection Area The settlements within Santo André’s Watershed Protection Area are poorly located in relation to urban services. Aside from the favelas’ lack of internal physical and social infrastructure, they are located at least 10 kilometres from the nearest urban services, while the furthest favelas are up to 15 kilometres by road from the built up core of the city. Exacerbating the problem of distance from services is the circuitous road system and poor or nonexistent public transit. Consequently, easy daily access to health and education resources for favela residents is limited.

11

Municipal statistics indicate that this trend, indicating a slowing rate of population growth in Santo André, is consistent with growth rates for Brazil that changed from an average of 2.89 per cent p.a. in the 1960s, to 2.48 per cent in the 1970s, and down to 1.96 per cent in the 1980s. Similarly, the rate in SPMA has declined from 5.44 per cent, to 4.46 per cent p.a., to 1.86 per cent p.a. in those respective decades.

10 Santo André’s Watershed Protection Area is particularly vulnerable to damage by major vehicle throughfares such as the Anchieta Highway and the Estrada do Pedrosa. These roads provide easy access to the area for the illegal dumping of industrial waste material from Santo André and other municipalities. These roads also provide access to the protection area by unregulated settlers or squatters. The current rates of growth in the favelas in Santo André’s Watershed Protection Area is approximately 15-25 new families per month. Settlement levels in the Santo André Watershed Protection Area are currently low relative to most other municipalities in the ABC Region. However, trends in those other municipalities indicate that unless an intervention is made at this early stage of settlement, there is little to prevent a situation arising such as in São Bernardo where 200,000 people––or 30 per cent of its population––live illegally in the protection area. A Watershed Protection Law was enacted in 1975, designating portions of various municipalities as ‘Watershed Protection Areas’. The objective of this legislation was to ensure water quantity and quality for the reservoirs that feed the SPMA. With a view to protecting the watersheds, State Laws No.898/75 and no.1172/76 prescribed stringent land use restrictions for occupation within Watershed Protection Areas, which accounted for 54 percent of the SPMA. Restrictive zoning was intended to be the primary means of land-use control. The 1970s were characterized, however, by a high degree of centralization and control of financial resources and legislative power at federal and state levels, making it impossible for local governments to formulate and effectively implement land use guidelines for areas under their jurisdiction. These legislative controls were ineffective in guiding settlement of watershed protection areas. In terms of this legislation, most human settlement within Watershed Protection Areas that predates the legislation is illegal insofar as it fails to comply with the stringent land use regulations prescribed by the legislation. In some municipalities such as Ribeirão Pires and Rio Grande da Serra, 100 per cent of the municipal area falls within the WPA, whereas in other municipalities such as Santo André, 61 per cent (or 9,600 hectares out of a total of 17,780 hectares) is designated as Watershed Protection Area. Unlike municipalities such as São Bernardo, which has 200,000 people living within the Watershed Protection Areas, Santo André has only 25,000 people living within its WPAs. This accounts for 4 per cent of its total population, the remainder of which live in the higher density northern portion of the municipality (see Figure 2). The democratization process and approval of the new constitution in 1988 marked a shift away from centralized control, to the decentralization of urban management functions back to the municipal level. Reinforcing this decentralization process were a number of legislative changes that are of particular relevance to environmental management. These included State Law No. 7663, passed in 1991, which prescribed a decentralized policy for water resource management via the Water Basin Committees (Comitês de Bacia) which are comprised of representatives of state and local government as well as civil society organizations). Santo André is represented on the Alto Tietê and Billings-Tamanduatei Water Basin Committees. State Law No. 9034 of 1994, in conjunction with the above mentioned piece of legislation, requires that “emergency plans,”

11 “environmental plans” and “sustainable development plans” need to be drawn up for the water basins, which are then to be submitted to the Water Basin Committees for approval. Of greatest significance at the municipal level, and superseding the largely ineffective Watershed Protection Law, is a new piece of legislation––the State Law of Recovery and Protection of Watersheds, no. 9866 of 1997.12 The significance of this new legislation is at least threefold. Firstly, it acknowledges the reality of settlement within the Watershed Protection Area. Secondly, it makes possible the formulation of emergency plans to provide basic services to the human settlements within respective municipalities’ Watershed Protection Areas, most of which are “illegal” in terms of the 1975/1976 legislation. Thirdly, it gives the municipality of Santo André the authority to enact regulations with respect to the watershed areas within its municipal boundaries. The new legislation reinforces the process of decentralized watershed management through the tripartite water basin committees. For each basin, a committee comprising representatives from state government, local government and civil society organizations has been established. This committee is involved in the formulation of an emergency plan aimed at the restoration of watersheds, and the formulation of an environmental plan––which includes the formulation of a socioeconomic development plan. In addition, the subcommittee of the Billings-Tamanduatei Sub-Basin is also responsible for the formulation of a sustainable development plan dealing with land use, occupation and environmental protection of the Billings Reservoir. In order to avoid contradictory regulations being enacted in contiguous municipalities sharing the same waterbasin, any new enactment of regulations needs to be consistent with state laws that are in the process of being formulated for each waterbasin––which, in the case of Santo André, refers to the Alto-Tietê Basin.

12

This is supported by federal level legislation in the form of the National Water Resources Management Act of 1997. See Porto, M. 1998. The Brazilian Water Law: a new level of participation and decision-making. Water Resources Development, Vol. 14, No. 2, pages 175-182.

12

./

Figure 3. Santo André’s Watershed Protection Area

13 III. FORMULATING THE WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PLAN The essence of the problem within Santo André—and, indeed, throughout the SPMA—is that uncontrolled human settlement results in damage to environmentally sensitive areas. This adversely affects the quality of life for people in the area, most visibly those living in informal settlements. The immediate planning problem that arises is that there is no framework or comprehensive framework to guide future settlement, or to address existing settlement in the watershed protection area. Based on the outcome of discussions amongst state and civil society institutions, it was agreed that the long-term goal is to achieve a balance between human settlement and the environment in such a way that environmental damage is reduced, undamaged areas are protected, and quality of life is improved. This all needs to be achieved in fiscally sustainable terms. In addition, monitoring criteria need to be defined for each step in the planning process. These enable ongoing assessment of whether (a) the CBWM framework addresses the goal of a balance between human settlement and the environment and (b) steps taken throughout the planning process contribute to the achievement of the objective (a comprehensive CBWM framework and strategy for implementation). IV. PROJECT SPECIFICS Five categories of project activities have been developed so far. These activities were conducted within the parameters of the planning process that is guiding the overall project. These activities are described below: 1. Information gathering and diagnosis. The basis for the development of a range of possible action options. A diagnosis of the regional (Billings Reservoir Basin) as well as the local (Rio Grande Arm) watershed were completed for the understanding of the watershed within which Santo André is located. 2. Planning for the Formulation of the CBWM framework. Three working groups (land use and settlement planning, social action & citizenship, and information management) were responsible for data collection and planning of specific processes for the CBWM strategy for the next stages of the project. 3. Initiating Pilot Project 1. The initial actions of the upgrading plan for one settlement in the watershed protection area – Parque Represa Billings Três (an illegal subdivision) – were taken, and represented the first steps toward implementation of CBWM methods. Training in CBWM. Training was provided to Brazilian participants in the areas of conflict resolution and hypermedia data organisation. The project was exposed to a larger community during the CIP Forum on Governance and Urban Environmental Management in Montreal, where the Brazilian representatives were exposed to some extent to multi-stakeholder management and

14 other governance issues. The training on hypermedia technology was emphasised in order to use experiences and data collected for the continuous watershed management framework updating. Planning the planning process. The consistency and interrelations of the various elements of the planning process for the watershed are being monitored on a continuous basis. To that effect, structured strategic planning exercises on the CBWM have been conducted periodically. The outputs for the project were presented in the form of a CD-ROM in a workshop involving stakeholders from municipal, state, and national level, as well as universities, NGOs, and community-based organisations (CBOs). In addition, throughout this period, linkages between project’s teams were developed via the participation of project partners and invited specialists in joint workshops and training events. Core to the conceptual framework of the project is a need for constant feedback to the planning processes as the project evolves. Based on the continuous evaluation of information, inputs and activities should be adapted and all necessary adjustments should take place. The eventual rescheduling of activities is a reflection of the constant adaptation to the needs of the partnership, and which is managed to maximize the results at all levels. The achievements gained can be recognized as lessons in the following areas: A. Institutional relationship: • the nature of the partnership has developed as a collaborative exercise, with strong sense of cooperation towards the goals and objectives of the project (not us versus them, but us with them), • there is a clear and common understanding of the problem, shared on a continuous basis considering the complexity of the issues involved, • the existence of institutional conflict has been recognized and acknowledged, and dealt with in a transparent way, • there is the common recognition of the complexity of shifting roles and rules of the several collaboration agencies, • a series of steps have been discussed for increasing participation and facilitating new dialogue between all participants and stakeholders in the project. B. The planning process: • An emphasis placed on planning the planning on an ongoing basis, • agreement on monitoring at different levels that yield practical results and generate knowledge, • efforts to increase replicability and dissemination of lessons: linked to policy and institutional changes,

15 •

continuous exercises in the integration of social, economic, biophysical and institutional elements, heralding a shift away from a reliance on the legalistic Master Plan methods commonly used, • organization of activities/actions for encompassing Substantive Planning (land use, physical, socio-economic) and Strategies for Implementation (financing, regulation, education, management), • a clear understanding of how the CD-ROM can act as a support to the planning process; a “spinal cord” around which activities can cohere; organization and dissemination of information. C. Technical innovation • experimentation of several innovations: tools explored (e.g. alternative technologies, innovative urban design, hypermedia CD-ROM, gender framework, conflict management techniques) • acknowledgment of unexpected consequences (e.g. CD-ROM as a strong element for collecting support beyond the project physical boundaries) • development of an informal settlement upgrading approach that integrates environmental with physical, socio-economic, institutional and is responsive to the local characteristics. It is important to try and stimulate the broadening of knowledge among the partners about gender, citizenship, and environmental issues applicable to the Santo André context. The experience of the Brazilian partners indicate that, in spite of working with gender issues and citizenship rights, there is a lack of emphasis on environmental and volunteerism issues. The incorporation of gender analysis into the “learn-by-doing” pilot project indicates the firm commitment of the partner to fill in the gap in the existing policy gender approach. IV. CBWM: A framework for adaptive management CBWM is a multi-stakeholder approach to planning that aims to achieve a balance between human settlement and the environment. The strength of this approach lies in the way in which it integrates biophysical, socio-political and economic elements into the watershed management process in a participatory way. Via a multi-stakeholder planning framework, this approach explicitly seeks to bring existing conflicts to the surface and to develop mechanisms to deal with them in a constructive manner. Furthermore, CBWM aims to put in place the economic and institutional mechanisms designed to rehabilitate and restore environmentally sensitive areas that have already been damaged, and to protect areas that have not yet been damaged or settled. As a starting point, the planning process was conceived and organized based on biophysical boundaries—not political or legal jurisdictions, as is the case with Master Planning. The Billings Reservoir Basin, therefore, provided the boundaries for a regional evaluation of the water resources situation, as well as the physical, land use, social and institutional processes that

16 significantly affect water resources management. Similarly, the boundaries of the Rio Grande watershed were used to frame an Environmental Sensitivity Analysis of the activities and land uses that influence the quality and quantity of the water resources, as well as the quality of life of people living in this watershed. These biophysical boundaries extend beyond the jurisdiction of Santo André. This ensures that planning is grounded in a comprehensive picture of the regional context, thereby avoiding an ‘edge of the world’ syndrome in which data collection and mapping stops outside of Santo André’s jurisdiction. As noted earlier, the approach to land use planning in Brazilian cities has historically been exclusionary in nature. In contrast, CBWM recognizes that communities possess a great deal of useful knowledge that can be used in the planning process. Consequently, the process is designed to include a wide range of stakeholders in the conceptualization, design, and implementation of planning guidelines. In particular, CBWM involves people in the planning and development process as stewards of the environment. This includes marginalized groups such as low-income favela communities, women, and “illegal” residents who have traditionally been excluded from decision-making processes. In addition, project planning and policy-making involves working with administrators and professionals involved in projects on the ground, which is more likely to contribute to their commitment to the success of those strategies than would be the case if the framework was imposed from above. Throughout the process of developing the CBWM framework, the project has used a hypermedia CD-ROM as a ‘spinal cord’ around which project information is organized and managed. The CD-ROM was particularly useful at the early stage of gathering and organizing diagnostic information about the watershed protection area. Information on settlement and land uses, as well as all biophysical and socio-economic data were incorporated into the CD-ROM, which enabled the combination of spreadsheets with maps, images, graphics and databases to create an interdisciplinary and interactive information system.13 The CD-ROM has been updated as the project progresses, and thereby supports the planning process, helping to put information and development options into an easily accessible and understandable format in the ‘learning by doing’ process. Given that this settlement process is part of a broader dynamic that extends beyond Santo André’s jurisdictional boundaries, it has been important to include institutions from outside the municipality in the project planning process. This is been done both to ensure that broader regional-wide economic and political forces are taken into account in the formulation of Santo André’s CBWM framework, as well as to disseminate lessons learned from the planning process. This multi-layered process includes the seven local governments of the ABC Region (via the Intermunicipal Consortium of the Greater ABC Region), the private sector, NGOs, and civil 13

Municipality of Santo André/ UBC. 1999. Community-Based Watershed Management in Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil. Municipality of Santo André, and Centre for Human Settlements, UBC CD-ROM.

17 society organizations (via the Council of the Greater ABC Region), EMPLASA (São Paulo Metropolitan Planning Corporation), the SPMA (via state corporations and secretariats in the SPMA), and São Paulo State (via the Waterbasin Subcommittee). The adaptive learning nature of the planning process means that the CBWM framework will be subject to ongoing revision. Lessons learned throughout the planning process will continually be fed back into the design of the CBWM framework. This is intended to contribute to ongoing improvement and strengthening of the framework, and to the management of watersheds in the region.