- Sustainable Network as a Process: From Deteriorated Spaces to Productive Landscapes    270 kb by    Costa, Lucia Maria | lucialice@gmail.com    Short Outline The paper approaches urban landscape as a platform for social growth and environmental integration. Having a municipal programme in Rio de Janeiro as a case study, it deals with environmental sustainability and enriching of local cultures. Abstract This paper discusses the role of strategic initiatives where the urban landscape is approached as a plataform for both social growth and environmental integration. Landscape is focused as an interweaving of cultural and natural processes process, with an emphasis on the network among urban landscape, environmental protection and food production. This paper discusses a municipal programme in Rio de Janeiro named Rivers’ Guardians. Its main objective is to seek solutions to rivers cleaning that are effective, economical, and have social and environmental repercussions in that it also directly involve the local population. The Rivers’ Guardians are formed by local slum dwellers and low-income communities that are located near the rivers. The selected dwellers, preferably unemployed, are recruited to the cleaning and maintenance of the watercourse margin closer to their community. For this end they are trained, acquiring basic information on environmental education, cleaning techniques and treatment of collected waste. They all receive an income for this job. This initiative has involved local people not only to clean the river but also to reverse the perception and experience of the river as a garbage dump. Over the years the program has generated a significant change in many riverside landscapes. With the removal of trash, water and river banks became cleaner and thus allow other appropriations by the residents. In a number of situations vegetable gardens are created along the river banks, where the vegetables produced are donated to the community. The Rivers’ Guardians Programme has low financial cost and a high performance level concerning social-environmental issues, being a well succeed initiative regarding both river preservation and income generation for low income population. The paper concludes arguing, among other issues, that the processual character of the landscape will foster its potential in increasing the quality of live, fostering cultural and environmental sustainability as well as enriching local cultures. Keywords productive landscape; environmental restoration Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2011: LIVEABLE CITIES: URBANISING WORLD, Meeting the Challenge   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper