2012 Annual Report - The Nature Conservancy

WATER REQUIRES OUR VIGILANCE
WATER CHANGES MINDS
Denise O’Connor
Bedford, New York
Paulo Henrique Pereira
Extrema, Brazil
“It feels great to see the seedlings we’ve planted
growing into mature trees that will keep the air
and water clean, but for me, the real success of
the Water Producer Project lies elsewhere. We’re
changing these landowners’ minds, shaping their
ways of thinking about their lands and waters and
surroundings. We’re changing the way they think
about conservation and the economic value of
services that nature provides. It takes time to change
mentalities, but we’re changing them. And to me,
that’s this project’s greatest success.”
As the secretary of environment for the Extrema municipality,
Paulo Henrique Pereira runs the Conservancy-supported Water
Producer Project. The program is helping protect the drinking
water for roughly 9 million people around São Paulo by collecting
fees from water users to pay farmers and ranchers to protect or
restore riparian forests on their lands upstream.
“Our community organized to oppose proposals for
commercial development of two properties, both
with wetlands and one which sits within the Mianus
River Critical Environmental Area. The proximity to
headwaters of the Mianus River has the community very
concerned, particularly since our drinking water comes
from wells. Moreover, the Mianus provides drinking
water for more than 130,000 people. I never considered
myself an environmentalist; to me the term connoted a
granola-eating tree-hugger. But the issues are important
to my family and my community, as we rely on the water
source. This incident has completely changed my view
about nature and conservation.”
Denise O’Connor and her husband, Steven, live within the Mianus
River watershed in Westchester County, New York. The watershed
also contains the Mianus River Gorge Preserve, the Conservancy’s
first land protection effort. In 1955, the Conservancy provided
scientific expertise and innovative finance to enable a similar
group of concerned citizens to acquire an initial 60 acres of oldgrowth
hemlock forest. O’Connor and her neighbors’ action is a
reminder that citizen vigilance remains crucial to keeping nature
healthy. O’Connor’s evolution is also a reminder of the need to make
conservation relevant and accessible to a much broader segment
of society.
Nature Matters I The Nature Conservancy 47