Name: Injustiça Climática Vale do Ribeira - Iporanga e Eldorado
Duration: 34 min 58 s
Channel: Moeté Filmes
Description: Funded with resources from the INCLINE Notice (Ordinance IAG-D-21, DE 27-7-2021) to promote initiatives participatory action research on climate change, with financial reso...

Funded with resources from the INCLINE Notice (Ordinance IAG-D-21, DE 27-7-2021) to promote initiatives participatory action research on climate change, with financial resources from the project "Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate (Climate-U)" An association between University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil) and University College of London (London, England) This film is one of the results of the project “Participatory Research in Action: Education for Climate Justice in Vale do Ribeira-SP” Realization Center for Research in Organizations, Society and Sustainability (NOSS) and Moeté Filmes. I think Vale do Ribeira is a privileged area because it has a huge cultural diversity. What will our life be like in the future?

Our meat used to be just fish. My mother had a trap in the stream. We set up the net, caught the fish and held them there until it was time to eat.

At that time there was a lot of fish, we caught them and kept them. Today? Today fish are scarce.

About three years ago many palm trees died. They cannot withstand frost. It falls into their mesh, and the palm trees rot from the inside.

In the 1997 flood, to make matters worse, the ferry was washed away by the flood. The ferry was taken. So, people had no access whatsoever, neither to go nor to return.

Those were difficult times. And it took many months to build another ferry. It was necessary to build another ferry.

And the people suffered without transportation. That flood was severe. We were building this house where I live today.

The flood reached here where we are standing now. Water covered the bridge. There was massive damage to those who lived next to the river.

Water covered their houses. People rushed to store their prized posessions in the attics. And then the water took over the attics too.

CLIMATE (IN)JUSTICE VALE DO RIBEIRA IPORANGA - ELDORADO All predictions were that these events would happen in the distant future. But we are already experiencing extreme events today. It is the extraordinary impact of floods that puts people in a total emergency condition.

This emergency triggers a systemic process: Who will respond to the calls? Where will people take shelter? Who will take things out of their homes?

How will people communicate? It's an extreme situation. But what the population in Vale do Ribeira currently faces is living with a terrible infrastructure that, in case of any rain, any storm creates a situation of isolation and climate emergency even if this is not an extreme phenomenon.

The problem is not the lack of paving on the roads. The problem is the lack of technical criteria in the construction and maintenance of roads to withstand the rains. So, there is a lack of technical capacity and a lack of public responsibility when contracting or privatizing road maintenance.

The water has to drain. If it doesn't drain, it will pool. If the water pools, it will make holes on the road If the water pools, it will make holes on the road.

Or it will turn to mud and cars won't pass So, the problem is not the lack of paving, but the poor quality paving, that can’t guarantee people’s right to come and go. This affects school transportation, the logistics of agricultural production, access to health services, and people's exit in an emergency The lack of roads and lack of communication greatly increase vulnerabilities. People cannot even communicate in case of emergency, nor leave their place.

Additionally, there is the issue of ferries. Once, because of a big storm, the population was isolated and without a ferry for almost three months No ferry and no road. So, for example, an extreme rainfall at a given time in an area that is already social and environmentally vulnerable amplifies the consequences over the population.

For me, the flood of 97 was massive! I've seen several floods, but no one like this ever before. - And you had a house here?

I had a house. Right up there. The flood took it.

The flood of 97 was something extraordinary, something we had never experienced here. I thought it was a flood of biblical proportions. Because when it rains a lot the ferry no longer passes.

And when there is drought, it is also difficult to get through. Sometimes someone is sick or needs to get through quickly, and sometimes it takes more than half an hour depending on how the ferry is. Crops, animals, all dead.

The flood took everything. It was a phenomenon that happened that shook the Municipality. Those who lived close to the river lost their homes, animals and crops.

Almost everyone lost something. Flood kills and displaces many in Vale do Ribeira. Traffic is practically stopped.

Opening of floodgates may have been the cause of the flood. Over 15 missing in the city. One of the things that most terrifies the population of Iporanga and those who live on the banks of Ribeira are the heavy floods.

I experienced one in 1997. I left the place at the last minute. I left Iporanga before the city became incommunicable.

This flood had a major impact on several municipalities in Vale do Ribeira. The river level rose almost 12 meters You need to understand that up to 8 meters is normal. Above this it really starts to get worrying And that day, when it exceeded 8 meters, it actually flooded several houses.

My house was flooded. The population then organized to remove furniture from their homes. Those outside the city followed the news on TV.

Occasionally I managed to speak to someone on the phone to get updates on what was happening there. This flood impacted several places, especially the most isolated places. They became even more isolated The flood of 1997 occurred because of the unprecedent volume of precipitation.

So not only did the Ribeira River flood, but its tributaries also flooded. It was a flood that came from highlands and there were storms in several places. The community of Pilões, for example, was underwater.

Several houses of the riverside population that were close to the rivers were destroyed. It was in August. On August 2, 2011.

There are usually no floods in August. It was a surprise. Then there was this flood and our ferry was gone.

And then we started our struggle to get a new one. - And why did you think this rain came out of season? Look, I'm going to tell you something, lady.

. . For me, this is something that cannot be explained.

Because we use to see floods by the end of the year. But in the month of August? August is not like that.

Assuming that vulnerable populations will be the most impacted by global warming, we need to quickly prepare ourselves and prepare them to live under extreme events. The communities of Iporanga and Eldorado have enormous difficulty to access public services and public infrastructure, mainly due to their geographic location. Normally, populations are in isolated areas and the distribution infrastructure is deficient, which also ends up hindering access to public health, education and social security services.

In terms of public health, we have a lot of difficulties here. If someone needs to go to the doctor during a rainy week, it is very difficult because transportation is very expensive. The cheapest costs 150 and the most expensive 250.

So, for us it is unfeasible. - One way or round trip? One way, right?

Regarding to education, there was a municipalization process. The state government took education out of its hands and passed it on to the municipalities. This contributed to the worseing of education mainly due to the lack of funds of local governments to keep and maintain the schools and the educational system.

So, currently in Iporanga, most children's schools are located in far neighborhoods where children study in multi-grade classrooms, an odd situation for the teachers. Furthermore, the teachers work in physically precarious conditions, like isolated schools. And then in youth education, young people usually study in the city.

To get there, they also need school buses. When it rains, students cannot go to classes because privatized or municipal transport does not reach the communities. So, any rain leaves these students isolated.

This creates a huge learning gap between students who cannot go to class during a rainy week and those who can. I've been through a lot of difficulties. At the time, when I taught there in Barra, I lived at the school.

I had to go and stay at school all week. I lived at school and only came home at the weekend, Friday afternoon. There were schools that were impossible to go and return on the same day.

It was pretty hard. In fact, there was a neighborhood that didn’ even have a school, but a little church instead, all made of wood, so I taught in that little church. There was no lunch lady.

So, the teacher taught, made lunch, did everything. I taught classes, made lunch and talked to the children at the same time. To go to the schools where I taught, the path was a trail.

A small trail. I went on foot or on horseback. There was a school I worked at that was about 2 to 3 hours away on foot.

There was another school I worked at, called Bela Vista. At that time I worked as a teacher and went to college in Registro. I spent 1.

5 hours getting to school and teaching, then I walked back, lived in a closed school on the side of the road and then went to Registro to go to college. That's how I graduated. - People say you founded this school.

How it was? I started in 2003. Changes?

Practically none! - What is the origin of the communities in Vale do Ribeira? There are several origins.

Chronologically first there was the indigenous people, the Guaranis, who are still there and they come and go, and are subject of a lot of harassment in some cities like Iguape, which are very conservative places. And then there are the quilombolas… no, the caiçaras first, then the quilombolas and there are also some other communities that are riverside people and caboclos. They call themselves caboclos.

So, the cultural diversity of the Valley is undoubtedly one of the greatest in Brazil. But I think that we, quilombolas, people who work on farms like this, farmers, I mean, quilombolas, caiçaras, who deal with agriculture, have great wisdom. We have knowledge of the men who work in the fields.

They know where the corn and rice grow, and when to harvest and plant. And we, as wives, are part of all this too. So, this is a great wisdom that we have and learned from our parents, who took the children to the fields.

We do not study. I did not study. But I learned a lot from my mother.

I learned how to make corn flour, cassava flour, I know how to plant corn, sweet potatoes, vines, sugarcane, corn. I know how to plant everything because I learned from my mother. So that was the biggest lesson.

And today young people don't know. We use to sell our crops in São Paulo. But they asked us to do not send certain itens, like “cará” and “taiá” because no one knows how to cook them.

They don't know what it is or what to do so they throw it away. They are our traditional food, right? I was born there in Castelhanos.

I got married there. My wife died. I spent 2 years or so without a wife.

Then I married this one. I got married in Pilão. 76 years of marriage.

Thank God. I'm 93 years old now in September. I'm 79 years old, I live in Nhunguara.

I was born right here on the farm, I wasn't born in a hospital. It took us all day to go to the mountains walking. We arrived in Iporanga, rested a little, sometimes the day was very hot, and then we continued.

We went barefoot because we didn't have shoes to wear. Things were very difficult. We only had our work clothes.

As a kid I liked to play football, walking on stilts, badminton. . .

- What about the river? - Oh, I don’t know what to say, it's wonderful! You can work all day, but if you go there in the afternoon and take a bath in a river like this, your energy returns immediately.

Nature is a gift that God left us. We used to play tag… there were lots of kids! We played together.

There were nine of us. It was a soccer team! The younger children love to play combing each others’ hair and making it Shine, play food.

Wow, it was fun! My great-great-grandmother, Nhá Cecília, is from Vale do Ribeira. Her daughter, Leonor de Oliveira Lima, married Luiz Nestlehner, who was an Austrian immigrant.

He found job while passing through Iporanga. So, my family is from there, always has been. He played an important role there.

He recorded more than 300 legends, discovered several caves. He was sought after by explorers and researchers who went to Iporanga. And I always wanted to work for the benefit of society as a counterpart since I was major in Architecture at a public college like FAU/USP.

And what we studied in our research was where climate injustices are. It is a contradiction, in terms, in the sense of empowering populations so that they become protagonists of this reaction: the right to have rights. Education for climate justice, which is the theme of our project, is about bringing them a certain awareness of these events and its consequences into people's everyday lives.

We developed the “Climate Detective” toolkit for educational proposals. However, from our experience in Vale do Ribeira, we noticed that teachers were unsure about themes such as “Climate Justice”. This occurs despite them experiencing it every day of their lives.

So, we are currently developing teaching guides with both theoretical support on climate change and suggested topics regarding “climate justice” so they can discuss it with their students and integrate them with the Climate Detective toolkit. I collected data from official government reports and studies by other authors on the territory of Eldorado. One thing that was very important and impacted me was realizing how climate injustices are present in the lack of infrastructure.

When we talk about vulnerabilities and action for climate justice, we think about infrastructure deficiency. We heard several reports about this. A very striking story was when a citizen reported the prices of traveling by car.

While people who live close to the main road spend a bus ticket, around 10 reais, other people who live in very remote neighborhoods spend 200 to 300 reais on a car ride to go to the city and access public health services. This highlights the vulnerabilities and differences between neighborhoods in terms of access to public services. During an academic semester, we co-created a kind of “logbook” with teachers and students about their journey through their territories.

And with that, we developed “Climate Detective” toolkit together. And it was a blast because the teacher felt more confident while the students had more autonomy to fill out their own diaries. This diary has group activities, classroom activities and also activities that they took as homework to fill with their parents.

The students begin to write their diary telling about their territory with drawings from observation of the landscape. So, the diary starts from a freestyle design, and progressively increases the difficulty of recognizing the territories. The diary uses satellite imagery from Google Earth so that students can find their home, their neighborhood, their school.

This way they understand the place where they live from different perspectives. So, with great pride, the students took this walk. The diary also increases their level of understanding local public services, the condition of roads, water, and the floods.

There are exercises, for example, to access ancestral memories from their parents and grandparents. They interview their family members, listen to their stories and learn from their past so they become more prepared for what will come. And this notebook ends with an exercise in citizenship.

Based on everything they learned along the “Climate Detective”, the students wrote a letter to the Public Prosecutor's Office asking about their housing conditions, their school and the entire community. So, they start a dialogue with the local authorities. We cross-referenced official data with data collected in the territory and produced enriched information that proves the relevance and the power of citizen science.

The students collected data that were not registered and otherwise were invisible. We worked together in order to make the data available and help the vunerable population to take ownership of the data they helped uncover. The co-construction of the “Climate Detective” toolkit made it possible to read the territory and its particularities, so now they can better understand what climate change is and why it happens right here and right now.

It's not a thing of the future. And, therefore, it is necessary to be alert and to adapt to these changes. So, we see that there are some people who resist and remain in their territory.

They believe in their potential and want to stay in their territory as transforming agents of their reality. They are part of a wider network that shapes their identity within the place where they live. I want to finish my studies living here in our territory.

After my graduation I want to return and to work here. It's my goal, you know? Show the younger people that if we have our land, we must honor it.

Because there are a lot of people out there who don't. We see the struggle of our MST comrades. We see the struggles they have been through to get a little piece of land.

It's so hard! We have our land, and we don’t honor it, right? I'm not a farmer, but I know it's hard work.

My parents raised me working in the fields, so I know how difficult it is, and I honor that. There's a quote by Paulo Freire that I always remember. He is our master, right?

And he says it's easier for a government to starve us than to give us education. Because we will be armed with knowledge. Something other people don't want us to have.

And the government doesn't want to be confronted by us. And that's what I'm learning, and I'm going to take it, and I'm going to fight until the last day. They're going to have me around for a long time!

I like the river, I like my aunts, here I can go everywhere. I like everything here. I wouldn't change anything.

I think there could be more people. But I love living here! Oh, I intend to stay here.

When I grow up, I think about being a teacher, you know? Oh, I intend to stay here. - What do you like most here?

I like everything! I like the river, the forest, the people. I like everything!

I like everything! Our way of living, which for some is not good, but I think it's very good, very enjoyable. Iporanga is a little piece of heaven.

I live here happily. CLIMATE JUSTICE VALE DO RIBEIRA IPORANGA - ELDORADO Funded with resources from the INCLINE Notice (Ordinance IAG-D-21, DE 27-7-2021) to promote initiatives participatory action research on climate change, with financial resources from the project "Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate (Climate-U)" An association between University of São Paulo (USP, Brazil) and University College of London (London, England) This film is one of the results of the project “Participatory Research in Action: Education for Climate Justice in Vale do Ribeira-SP” Realization Center for Research in Organizations, Society and Sustainability (NOSS) and Moeté Filmes.