More than ensuring biodiversity in terms of flora and fauna, the recovery of the Atlantic Forest can help increase the quantity and quality of the water in the springs, streams and rivers established in regions with this type of vegetation cover. This may be verified with the water tracking study done by the Instituto Terra at the Bulcão Farm, headquarters of non-governmental organization based in the city of Aimorés, in Minas Gerais.
Based on this study, combined with the project the environmental recovery accomplished at the
RPPN Bulcão Farm, the Instituto Terra was one of the winners of the seventh edition of Blue Gold Award Furnas, winning second place in the Community category. The award, an initiative of the company Furnas in partnership with the Estado de Minas newspaper, Correio Braziliense (DF) and Journal of Commerce (RJ), has a proposal to encourage and disseminate actions of restoration and conservation of water resources in Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and the Federal District.
To understand the relevance of the research about the springs recovery at the RPPN Bulcão Farm it is necessary to know a little more about the history of the Instituto Terra, founded in April 1998, by the couple Lélia Wanick and Sebastião Salgado, initiated after the need to decide about the destination to give the farm, the couple's family property.
As in so many other properties of the Doce River Valley, which are dominated by the small-sized farms, based on family work and dedicated to extensive farming, especially cattle rising, also the soil and water were depleted there, resulted by centuries of extractive exploitation and deforestation.
Of the total area of the Farm, 709.84 hectares, 608.69 of those were transformed into Private Reserve of Natural Heritage (RPPN) and are in the process of reforestation with native species of the Atlantic Forest. The study was precisely to evaluate the influence that this recovered vegetation cover had on the conditions of the water at the RPPN.
The study, coordinated by the Environmental manager of the Instituto Terra, Jaeder Lopes Vieira, and forestry engineer Paulo Henrique de Souza, responsible for the Institute’s nursery of the Atlantic Forest’s native species seedlings, adopted as a working method to measure the water flow in December in ten different points, distributed in the basins of the Bulcão and Constância stream and, that are born at the Bulcão Farm. Besides the water flow it has been checked the physical, chemical and biological quality of the water at the farm.
The measurements of the water were performed between 2006 and 2007, meaning, seven and eight years respectively, after the beginning of the reforestation process at the farm. And the conclusions of this monitoring are a real stimulus to other projects of environmental recovery in the region.
The restoration of the vegetation cover at the RPPN had direct and positive influence on the quality, quantity and availability of its waters. Regarding quality, it is worth emphasizing that there was a significant improvement, given that the eight springs studied, five no longer show the presence of coliform fecal. Still, it is observed that without any treatment, water quality in streams of the farm is still not consistent with the standards of drinkable water, although it can be used in several other ways..
VEGETABLE COVERING INFLUENCE OVER THE HYDRIC CONDITIONS OF THE RPPN-BULCÃO FARM IN AIMORÉS
