Migração ambiental compulsória em hidroterritórios : impactos nas famílias ocasionado pelo Cinturão das Águas, na Região do Cariri Cearense

Resumo Ingles

The present study aims to discuss the Ceará Water Belt (CWB) water project implementation as well as the compulsory migration brought about in the Cariri region in Ceará. In the stretch that encompasses the municipality of Crato, the Baixio das Palmeiras district’s empowered communities, through the mobilization and participation of community social institutions, formed a hydroresistance social grassroots called The Popular Water Forum, whose objective is to protect its hydroterritory. The study’s guiding question is: what are the impacts on the relationship between person and environment caused by compulsory migration for residents affected by the Ceará Water Belt (CBW) Project? The methodology that was adopted was the multi-method approach, including mixed approach instruments, such as participant observation, interviews, survey application based on a scale adapted of attachment and place identity and environmental autobiography.The sample consisted of project managers, community leaders, affected communities, and residents who had or will have their homes expropriated. For data analysis, content analysis, collective subject discourse, statistical treatment and environmental autobiography were used. The study results showed different perspectives on the person-environment interections.The convergence points are the recognition of the importance of an enterprise that aims to ensure water security; lack of skill in approaching residents; the management bodies sluggishness in carrying out the work; and lack of transparency of information. The suffering caused by the human rights violation of those who are affected, ways of life are also affected, as well as the physical and mental health of the community, in addition to causing environmental damage. The existence of attachment strong bonds and place identity, is observed in both natives and non-natives, in men, more than in women, and in the age group of 50 years onwards.The socio-environmental conflict instituted reached, as a positive externality, the project structural modification, in order to reduce the amount of expropriated properties. It is concluded that the rooting and belonging of the inhabitants in relation to the house, the neighborhood and the natural heritage of the place is evidenced in social cohesion and residential satisfaction related to the appropriate space. Mitigation actions need to contemplate the people’s psycho-affective relationships in the territory; build cooperative and co-responsability relationships when it comes to shared management of water resources; strengthen integrated water resources management, the active and informed participation of the society, include Environment Education programs for children, youth and for the community people with the aim of promoting the understanding of the human behavior in the environment, because the affective relationships with the place tend to reverberate in pro environmental behaviors.Therefore, interdisciplinary dialogue on environmental issues needs to incorporate the environmental psychology and rural psychology contributions, both to mitigate and to prevent environmental damage. The CWB Project downplayed the social impacts as well as disregarded the psychological ones in the lives of the affected communities, consequently, it is recommended that public policies aimed at reducing vulnerability should incorporate these impacts and have a new perspective in discussions on water policy, environmental management, territorial planning and development projects, so as to adopt measures that consider all the psychosocial impacts on the citizens involved in such actions.