Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
are not merely destructive but can also foster opportunities for growth, learning, and
adaptation. The idea of crisis can be viewed as a type of conflict producing qualitative
changes that, in turn, promote transformations in natural and sociocultural systems
and have at least the potential to make these systems more resilient. In this sense, re-
silience is connected with the idea of coevolution (Norgaard 1994, 2002), viewed as a
key factor in understanding the process of natural selection in the field of natural sci-
ences. It likewise aligns with processes of diffusion and acculturation in the field of so-
cial science, used to analyze and understand the development of socioeconomic and
cultural change from a systemic perspective. This approach pays attention to internal
processes and relations between individuals and groups in the socioecosystem, not just
to genetic and exogenous factors.
As observed by Boisier (1994), cultural identity and identification with territory,
along with the resilience of the social fabric (i.e., the capacity for reconstruction fol-
lowing damage caused by external agents), are critical factors for an area to be consid-
ered territory. All of the above highlights the critical role played by collective identifi-
cation and popular participation in advancing conservation, restoration, regeneration,
and management of the sustainable development of a territory. From this perspective,
collective identification and social participation are processes that are intrinsically
linked with the ecosystem that the human collective in question inhabits. The
strengthening role of resilience described previously is not limited solely to the hu-
man sphere but, rather, spreads to the entire ecosystem of which people are a part.
The greater and more in-depth the social participation and identification of the col-
lective with the structural elements of its specific existence, such as territory, the more
resilient that ecosystem as a whole will be. Given the crucial importance of a strong
sense of belonging, of identification, as a fundamental factor in the resilience of a
human group, participation must be seen as a strategy that is able to increase and
intensify the resilience of that group and, by extension, of the whole socioecosystem
to which it belongs. Nowhere is this more apparent than in ecological restoration
processes.
The Case of the “Green Corridor,” Andalusia, Spain
In 1998, the Aznalcóllar mine waste reservoir ruptured, flooding a large part of the
Guadiamar River basin with a torrent of toxic sludge, more or less up to where it meets
the Doñana marshlands, one of the most important and valuable natural spaces in
Europe (Escalera 2003, 2008). The mines of Aznalcóllar are located 25 miles (40 km)
northwest of Seville and 28 miles (45 km) north of the Natural Space of Doñana, an
extensive territory including a number of protected areas, most notably Doñana Na-
tional Park (fig. 6.1). The mines have been exploited for their deposits of pyrite, cop-
per, silver, gold, lead, sulfur, and zinc for centuries, and ownership of the mines has
changed frequently during this time. In 1987, the Swedish-Canadian company Boli-
den Limited took ownership of the mines and was in control at the time of the disas-
ter. The toxic flood occurred on the morning of April 25, 1998, when the failure of a
reservoir meant to hold mining residues sent six million cubic meters of acidic, heavy
