The Cantareira Water Supply System and Local Efforts for Sustainable Agriculture in Nazaré Paulista, State of São Paulo, Brazil

Relationship 1

RU to RS

• Producers use water for irrigation of crops and sustenance of livestock, modify the resource system to manage water flows, and make land-use decisions that affect water quality and quantity.
• Leisure landowners are largely absent and detached from the resource system, often renting rural spaces for tourists.

RS to RU

• Changes in landscape properties can induce cascading effects that lead to soil erosion that impacts agricultural productivity.

Relationship 2

RU to PIP

• Rural producers agree to participate in agrobusiness workshops and provide input in participant engagement process in efforts to collaboratively create sustainable agriculture strategies and test practices.
• Governmental institutions are supported by taxes that support local munipalities and state-level offices. The latter implies support from water users in urban areas that are exogenous to the specific system in this context.

PIP to RU

• Workshops provide training and resources for rural producers that can enhance productivity while working toward more ecologically sound agricultural practices.
• Governmental organizations can sanction users in the form of fees for vialating mandates for protected areas.

Relationship 3

PIPs dedicate scheduled spaces for workshopping, seedlings, knowledge-based resources, and somtimes transportation to and from workshops. Additionally, PIPs sometimes make site visits to evaluate and provide feedback on agricultural practices and infrastructure related to collaborations.

Relationship 4

Hard Infrastructure

• Construction of the Cantareira System dramatically changed the ecological landscape as large areas were converted into reservoirs and flooded in. Many of these areas were highly productive lands both in terms of native Atlantic Forest species and in terms of agricultural production. Water in the reservoirs is distributed from the hinterlands to dense urban areas with high demand.

Soft Infrastructure

• Collaborative organizations implement novel strategies that attempt to conserve water, biodiversity, and restore native species and forested areas.

Relationship 5

• The National Water Law of 1997 provides payments for ecosystem services as an incentive for \"water producers\" in the region to participate in restoration efforts.

• The Forest Code of 1965 mandates conservation and restoration of certain environmental areas that are categorized as Legal Reserves (a minimum percentage of farm area must be maintained with native vegetation). Some LRs may also be designated as Areas of Permanent Preservation (fragile areas that must be protected).

• Collbarative workshops transfer knowledge and strategies for \"agro-ecology\" that aims to increase agricultural productivity while supporting restoration of the Atlantic Forest biome (e.g. Permaculture, Voisin cattle ranching methods).

Relationship 6

• Due to demographic changes as land is increasingly captured by developers and leisure landowners, classically self-organized and informal collective efforts by family farmers and small-scale producers (resource users) to manage the resource system is breaking down.

• Some producers are engaging in participant engagement activities in collaboration with PIPs in the NGO and governmental sectors, but participation is systematically waning and the current system for payments for watershed services is insufficiently effective.