The Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement is engaged in the collective construction of a socio-environmental requalification project in the lower course of the Onça Stream watershed, in Belo Horizonte. This watershed, densely populated, is today the largest polluter of the Velhas’s river. In this region, human occupation has uncharacterized the local vegetation, affected the water body and the entire water dynamic. The waters and surrounding areas of this portion of the watershed have received most of the diffuse pollution from upstream processes, becoming the focus of disease, poverty, flooding, and death. Its borders, considered to be extremely risky, are the stage for many structural and social problems (disorderly occupation, incorrect garbage disposal, irregular sewage disposal, lack of public facilities, etc.). On the other hand, this is the only part of the hydrographic basin where Onça Stream runs in a natural bed. Important environmental attractions are also concentrated there (waterfalls, rapids, beaches, islands, forests and springs), which constitute territories of great potential.

For the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement, the challenge of improving water quality is linked to the improvement of the living conditions of the riverside populations, who are the main beneficiaries of its work. The history of this Movement is related to groups of residents who became aware of the problems and potentialities of the region and, in 2001, created the Communitary Council Unidos pelo Ribeiro de Abreu (COMUPRA). This organization does not seek attention and recognition for a specific neighborhood but discusses what matters to all neighborhoods and inhabitants of the northern and northeastern regions of Belo Horizonte, all located in this basin. That is, this Council tried to adequate itself to what the modern Brazilian water law recommends: planning by watershed.
COMUPRA’s actions – which are not based on welfares, but on socio-environmental action and on the incentive to people’s agency – have benefited the local population and natural heritage and promoted a transformation in the lower Onça region.

COMUPRA has brought together other people and institutions that share the same interests for the socio-environmental requalification of the region, giving rise to the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement, an organization that centralizes the discussions, practices, knowledge, and expertise of several partners: the Rio das Velhas Watershed Committee (CBHVelhas), the Onça Subcommittee (SCBHOnça), the Manuelzão Project (UFMG), the Minas Gerais Sanitation Company (COPASA), the Belo Horizonte Urbanizing and Housing Company (URBEL), universities, schools, among others.

Initially, the actions developed in the lower Onça region aimed at improving the living conditions of local populations and, consequently, their environment. These were, therefore, immediate demands that in principle were not climate-related. The awareness that such actions can be related to climate change has been built little by little.

We understand that climate change mitigation implies actions that consciously aim to reduce greenhouse effect gas emissions. Climate change adaptation focuses on the consequences of global warming and “focuses on initiatives and measures to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems to the current and expected effects of climate change”. Thus, although the emissions are global, the impact of climate change is local. Therefore, it seems to us that the actions
developed in the lower Onça – especially in its aspects of health, water resources, human settlements, natural ecosystems, education and environmental citizenship – relate more to the line of adaptation to climate change.

According to the study Analysis of Vulnerability to Climate Change in the Municipality of Belo Horizonte, the northern axis of the capital has a trend of greater vulnerability to temperature rise and flood risk. This study proposed climate change adaptation measures that in practice are being implemented in the lower Onça region, as a result of discussions coordinated by COMUPRA and the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement (implementation of the Onça Stream Communitary Ciliary Park, improvement of drainage infrastructure, improvement of housing quality; intelligent use of green areas; accessibility to open public areas; socio-educational campaigns, among others).

Furthermore, in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals, the actions developed in the lower Onça are linked to ODS 2 – Zero Hunger and sustainable agriculture (courses, workshops, and community projects related to family agro-industry and the installation of collective gardens and agroforests); to ODS 6 – Drinking water and sanitation (actions for the requalification of river springs and support to their caretakers, and pressure for COPASA to intercept sewage discharged in natura into the Onça river); to ODS 11 – Sustainable cities and communities (coordination of actions for the implementation of the Onça Stream Communitary Ciliary Park). Thus, this whole process is linked to ODS 13 – Action against global climate change.

Currently, the main goals of the Movement Let the Onça Drink Clean Water are contained in its 2025 GOAL: Swim, Fish and Play in the Onça Stream. To achieve this goal, the Movement Let the Onça Drink Clean Water considers the following measures as indispensable:

1. Remove all at-risk families from the borders of the Onça Stream (from the waterfall in Novo
   Aarão Reis to the limits of the ETE Onça Stream);
2. Implementation of the Onça Stream Communitary Ciliary Park ;
3. Collection, interception, and treatment of 100% of the Onça Stream sewage;
4. Municipalization of the MG-20 highway, (approximately 5 km within the Ciliar Park
   territory);
5. Construction of a new access to the Ribeiro de Abreu neighborhood and region.
   Another value defended by the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement is the leading role
   given to local populations in the resolution of their problems. To this end, the Movement seeks to
   promote dialogue between the community and the institutions that may have an impact on it.

The Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement holds debates, meetings, periodic events, training courses/workshops, joint efforts for environmental recovery and communitarian construction of leisure and living spaces, planting of trees and vegetables, and protection of river springs. These actions are organized in a meeting, always on the second Tuesday of each month, and in other meetings that may be necessary.

The socio-environmental actions developed in the region of the lower Onça have already generated numerous conquests for the region, such as the duplication and lighting of the MG 20 highway and the relocation of 700 families that inhabited risk areas, as well as another 400 families that lived in very high-risk areas and were transferred to decent housing nearby. Another important achievement has been the collective occupation of the borders of the Onça Stream (construction, in joint efforts by the residents themselves, of leisure and living areas, a soccer field, a community garden, and agro-forestry production), especially in places where houses were demolished.

Additionally, the Movement Let the Onça Drink Clean Water presented to the Belo Horizonte City Hall the demand for the creation and construction of the Onça Stream Communitary Ciliary Park. The project for this park was built after a long process of popular consultation and technical elaboration. About 5.5 km long, the park will pass through eleven neighborhoods in the northern and northeastern regions of the state capital. Along the way will be installed spaces for socialization, walking trails, bike lanes, courts, playgrounds, gyms, community gardens, among others. The idea is that the residents help build this space, even though this is a responsibility of the City Hall, and feel that the Park is a project that also belongs to them.

Another collective achievement was the cession of the Capitão Eduardo farm and the oldest Manor house in Belo Horizonte to house COMUPRA’s headquarters. Today, free workshops that generate income for the community are held there.

The Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement is an organization that involves several partners. Therefore, the actors are diverse and their backgrounds are diverse. In its ranks we find people with academic backgrounds (masters and doctors), teachers, liberal professionals, civil servants, students, and people with no specific background.

Thus, we can identify different actors in the region: the governments (state and municipal) and their public policy actions (relocation of families, sewage interception, urbanization, equipment maintenance, etc); the science, supported in the action of universities ( planning intervention in spaces, organization of joint efforts, actions regarding collective memory, etc); the education, through schools that have learned to identify and reveal in their school communities knowhow and doings, knowledge and daily social practices, used to carry out the reading and the intervention in the local reality; the civil society organizations, that help to confer protagonism to the local communities in the search for the solution of their problems.

Despite the many advances and achievements there are several challenges in the path of the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement. Among them we can highlight:

• The need to contribute for consolidating a public management model that favors actions
  aimed at urban sustainability.
• The incentive for various sectors of civil society and private initiative to commit themselves
  to goals aimed at urban sustainability.
• The deficiency of public resources that can be invested in improvement actions in the regions
  where the Movement is active.
• The recent veto against the application of resources by the Municipality of Belo Horizonte in
  urbanization works in regions where the Movement is active.

The main contribution of the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement is perhaps to demonstrate that the experience of social mobilization, the search for partnerships, and decentralized management can be applied in any context. The main point is to create a feeling of belonging to the socio-environmental theme, and in this way empower the community to be the protagonists. Among many (because the region’s achievements are the result of a long process of intersectoral discussions) we can highlight the changes brought about in schools by the processes experienced in the region. There are schools, which are partners of the Let the Onça Drink Clean Water Movement, which have introduced in their curricula socio-environmental discussions and initiatives as support for the contents of several subjects. The experiences of this region have been bringing schools and the community together in a common effort to learn about the local reality.
Furthermore, these schools have opened themselves up to the creation of spaces for dialogue, learning, and participatory methodologies – in partnership with local social movements.