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About Cooperation Network of Cantareira

HISTORY OF Coperation Network of Cantareira

Since 2006, the NGO IDEAS Brasil ( Institute of Environmental and Social Entrepreneurs) as been focusing on the organizational development of RECANTA Cooperation Network of Cantareira (Rede de Cooperação da Cantareira), the biggest urban forest in the world, located in São Paulo, Latin American megalopolis of 19 million inhabitants.

Our work concerning the threatened cultures of the forests started in 2001-2003 with the project Chico Mendes e o Encantado that reached 25.000 spectators in the largest cities of Brazil, making known the life and work of the rubber-industry workers leader Chico Mendes, recognized worldwide for defending the Amazon and its inhabitants, who was assassinated in 1988.
In 2004-2006 the project Chico Mendes for the youth produced audio-visual material about this leader and workshops for 420 youths in the slums around Serra da Cantareira – SP and Acre (Amazonia). This project was rewarded in the National Youth Conference of Environment (ex minister Marina Silva) for creating a methodology inspired by the Empates (movement of resistance to deforestation organized by the rubber-workers of the Amazon during the eighties). More

Already in 2006, IDEAS entered in cooperation with the president and employees of SABESP (Company that provides the drinking water in São Paulo) organizing frequent meetings with NGOs connected to the Cantareira as well as associations of inhabitants of the many communities around the Cantareira that suffer from lack of basic sanitation and water management caused by occupation of sensitive areas such as riverbanks, resulting in sever health hazards the local population. For this reason the participation of the engineers from SABESP (Management Counsel RECANTA) is instrumental in the solution of the problems of these communities.

In cooperation with the Forest Foundation (Fundação Florestal) and the Managing Authorities of the Cantareira State Park, RECANTA participated in the elaboration of the Management Plan of 2008 -2009 of the Cantareira State Park.
In 2008 RECANTA gained financial support from the Environmental Secretariat of São Paulo through the Special Environmental Trust.

This made possible the regional expansion of the RECANTA network to districts of great environmental vulnerability such as Brasilândia, Santana, Tucuruvi and Tremembé through the implementation of the Youth of the Forest Program consisting of 30 intelligent networking points through local educational institutions.

Currently active in 15 environmentally sensitive neighborhoods around the Cantareira, and rapidly expanding, the network that encircles the largest urban forest in the world has show capacity to diagnose and call attention to activities that threaten social and environmental safety, making possible a growing influence and participation in the formulation and implementation of public policies aiming for greater consideration to be taken to environmental aspects.

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