Programa Olhos d água: análise de uma iniciativa de proteção de mananciais na Bacia do rio Doce (MG e ES).

Abstract

With 86.715 km², the Doce river basin has 86% of its drainage area in the state of Minas Gerais and 14% in the state of Espírito Santo. The soil usage for different purposes such as agriculture and pastures was the main responsible for the native forest devastation, which was reduced to only 27% of the basin territory, resulting in water quality issues. This study has the objective to document and analyze the Olhos d água Program, an initiative from the NGO Instituto Terra, chaired by Lélia and Sebastião Salgado. This is a unique initiative to protect the Doce river basin, as it includes almost all properties within the basin and aims to take care of all rivers spring that needs protection. At first, an extensive research was made in order to identify the main existing programs involved in watersource protection in operation, and a few relevant ones were selected for this study. The concept of watersouce protection has been assumed as the group of practices, specially soil and water protection, which has the objective of maintaining or improving the quality and amount of water used for public supply. The description and analysis of the Olhos d água program was made based on a specific script which allowed to rank the main characteristics of the initiative, as follows: program goals and objectives; hydrographic clippings performance ; program s coordination and execution team; estimated long term costs; fund-raising strategy; field activities execution methodology; program`s main results thus far. Based on the assumed methodology it was possible to identify the main atributes from the Olhos d água program, which allows them to have such ambitious long term spring protection objectives, and differs them from other protection experiences.