We have to recognize that this perception of slowness does, indeed, make sense. And we need to speed up the implementation of recovery actions in order to revert this situation and, consequently, this image. No matter how much this is not an attempt to justify things, it is important to bear in mind that we are facing a significant change. We have begun to define and implement structural actions that have a slower rhythm of implementation if compared to the initial emergency actions. Aside to that, the whole process has undergone another transition period, which was the consolidation of Renova Foundation in August 2016, as an independent entity responsible for creating solutions that will have a lasting positive impact on the region affected by the dam breach.

We are facing a challenge for which there are no overt the counter solutions. On the contrary, we
are facing a lot of ambiguity, contradictions between multiple views, and we need to build a consensus around solutions that will be at the frontiers of knowledge. Having said that, we have adopted the premise of developing solutions from the involvement of society. More time is spent in this participatory process, but we shall gain efficiency in its implementation, which will have the support of the stakeholders. We are going to recover this time further ahead. Therefore, it is worth making this investment in collective construction in order to address this complexity in the development of solutions.

It is our goal that 37 of the 42 programs under the responsibility of Renova Foundation will have passed the stage of adjustment and adaptation of what must be done for their final execution. In concrete terms, this means that a series of actions should already be experienced in the field. For example, we must test models on: how
to recover water springs, how to start reforesting and promoting cultural events, among so many others. Similarly, all the containment structures need to be erected and consolidated, the solution for the dredging of Candonga (the reservoir of the Risoleta Neves Hydroelectric Power Plant, which lodged 10.5 million cubic meters of tailings), as defined by the public prosecutor, should be ready and in implementation, and this is an engineering challenge. We need to count on the guarantee that over the next rainy season tailings will not be washed down into the river and that, therefore, we shall have the impact under control with no incoming ones. From an internal perspective, our goal is to have an organization capable of dealing with long-term structural actions as a legacy – a team with this imprinted identity, with this long-term commitments, aided to the short term ones, that manages to promote the engagement and participation of society in a concrete solution generating process.

Without a doubt, the definition of governance throughout the entire recovery process, which is highly innovative. How to put this big of a challenge under the umbrella of an incredibly complex governance system, with an average of 150 people and organizations sharing in the decision-making process. There was a widespread lack of belief in the functioning of this participatory model of governance and it is already working. As a matter of fact, we totally lacked such an experience in Brazil of how to respond to major disasters and this has been a highly valuable lesson.

First and foremost, for legal reasons, a private law entity ought to be structurally independent, directly reporting to the Public Prosecution Office. On top of that, there is the governance system, defined by the Conduct Adjustment Declaration (TTAC), which created the inter-federative committee (IFC), responsible for maintaining the dialogue and monitoring the actions of the Foundation. The Advisory Board is another a key element with representatives from society. The Board of Trustees should strive to achieve the Foundation’s best interests and its core responsibilities are related to strategy, governance, risk management and budget allocation.

We are learning to deal with the complexity, in special, governance wise. But there are very serious obstacles from the technical solutions point of view in areas for which science still has no answer. There is no consensus, for example, with respect to the restoration of forests through planting native species. This is a technical barrier that will have to be overcome as quickly as possible. We need to come out of the dialogues with concrete solutions. It is important to remember that we operate 100% in third party areas and it will be in these areas that this restoration will occur. Therefore, in order to have a sustainable solution, it must make sense to the owner from the economic point of view, both immediately and in the long run. The big challenge of the year will be to identify the best solution to reconcile production and restoration. After all, the plots of land of these owners, mostly small farmers, are their livelihood. Only with this combination (production and conservation) will these initiatives make sense to them.

We have no right to linger in the discussion with specialists and organizations
for the sake of discussion. We need to make the shift to the practical application. We must translate all this diversity of opinions into concrete filed actions, which is a big challenge. Finally, we also have to understand how to reconcile our initiatives with the existing public policies.

We have to switch from the recovery perspective to the legacy one. In other words, not only rebuilding or recovering for the short term, but doing it aware that every action can, and should, entail the foundations of a sustainable future.

This is an opportunity for a developmental inflexion of the entire region. Based on the premise of reconciling production with conservation, we should leave the individual vision of each property, and look at the whole territory instead, developing innovative long-term territorial management strategy. Within this spatial logic, developing ecological corridors, integrating with the revitalization of the springs and democratizing the opportunity for all producers in the region, bringing more advanced concepts of land use, logistics, disposal, access to markets, financial flows, payment for environmental services and etc., it is possible to dream of the legacy of a social technology, supported by a system of participatory governance that reduces the volatility of the process and which could be applied to many other degraded regions in Brazil.

Renova Foundation aims at being a facilitator of this recovery process which may lead to a new development model for the Doce river basin, for which there is no easy solution, since it is not based on paternalistic but rather on structuring actions. It is based on the search for environmental, social and economic balance by mobilizing society. Population is ultimately the one to buy this idea. The only caretaker of this model is society. If we manage to do this in the territory affected, we can think of something similar for other regions of Brazil.