THE DEATH OF THE WATERS OF WESTERN BAHIA
19 de February de 2025
“You can walk along the beds of rivers that have died; they remain dry all year round. You only see water in them on rainy days. After the rains, they dry up again”
Communication from the Pastoral Land Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra: CPT) in Bahia
Mapping work in the sub-basins of the Corrente and Carinhanha rivers, carried out by many people over the course of 2023 and 2024, has identified 3,050 stretches of water that have dried up, including streams, creeks, springs and headwaters, totaling 7,120 km of dead water. Stretches of the upper and middle Corrente river were mapped, including the Guará, do Meio, Santo Antônio, Correntina, Arrojado and Formoso rivers; and the sub-basins on the left bank of the Carinhanha river in Bahia, including the Riacho do Meio and Itaguari rivers.
In addition to this dead water, the map shows a further 580 stretches of water classified as in critical condition, corresponding to 3,837 km, with an emphasis on the major river channels in the basins on the map. There are also labels identifying stretches of deforested areas, center pivot irrigation systems, water storage pools and other complementary information. The communities note that all the waters identified began drying up in the 1980s, around 15 years after the first “development” projects in the region were established, when large areas were cleared for pine and eucalyptus plantations in the Western Cerrado.
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