Care for Nature in the Devastated Landscape of Itapuã, Salvador - BA

Abstract

This essay results from the undergraduate research and extension activities carried out at the Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade Federal da Bahia, under project named “Restinga: estudo e reinserção do ecossistema na paisagem urbana de Salvador”, and also the final papers “Paisagens indomáveis: encontros possíveis nas margens do Abaeté” (Silva, A., 2020) and “CIDADES-FLORESTA: Retomando territórios de vida em Itapuã” (Silva, J., 2020). In this essay, the proposal is to build, with texts and photographs, a brief critical narrative about practices of caring for nature at the neighborhood of Itapuã, Salvador-BA, in a context of social, ethical and climatic crisis, as well as territorial disaggregation and socio-environmental devastation. Such practices, mainly planting and a special attentiveness to waters, registered between 2019 and 2020 during walks through the territory - some of which were guided or promoted by local residents, conversations and community actions, desmonstrate how the complex social-historical and biocultural network surrounding the territory of Itapuã continues to resist and (re)invent itself, despite how fragilized by colonial/developmental urbanization processes in Brazil it is, and indicates how necessary is for cities to be reformulated in order to enable the expansion and healthy resurgence of the most diverse and autonomous life forms.