Origin and history of the “water nodes network”: research, teaching and participatory extension in the conservation of water resources through the agroecological perspective
Keywords:
Agroecology, environmental education, water planting, rural sanitation, social technologyAbstract
The Water Nodes Network originates from a process of construction and systematization of
emerging agroecological experiences in Araponga/MG region in the early 1990s, based on a
partnership between the Alternative Technologies Center of Forest Zone (CTA-ZM), the Federal
University of Viçosa (UFV) and family farmers from the region. From these experiences, a
demand for a better understanding of the dynamics of water resources in these agroforestry
systems arises, prompting the creation of the Working Group on Water (GT-Água), in 2009.
Since then, numerous training and research actions have been initiated and other entities have
joined the group, constituting, in 2014, the Water Nodes Network, which operates in several
cities in the Forest Zone of Minas Gerais and beyond, using social technologies and techniques
which promote the conservation of water resources through collaborative nd participatory
methodologies, aiming the autonomy and collective construction of agroecological knowledge.
