MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name:

Ecoparks on watersheds riversides

One-line solution summary:

Create sustainable activities to finance water preservation and community wellbeing piloting a new model around the watersheds

Pitch your solution.

Lack of resources in communities surrounding watersheds in Colombia increase poverty and water issues, creating and piloting a great variety of sustainable activities like reforesting, species sighting and preservation, ecoturism, water bonds, local art and gastronomy, sustainable projects and digital monitoring can provide and stable income for those communities and water security for all depending on those ecosystems. And at the same time create a model to be replied in other watersheds nationally and in Latin America Region.

Film your elevator pitch.

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What specific problem are you solving?

We are working to help most of the SDGs but mainly 6, 8, 11, 13 and 16, in Colombia we have great amount of water resources but not knowing how to take care and how to create sustainable opportunities to go out of below poverty conditions specially in rural regions (47,5% last year and I cannot imagine now after COVID crisis and the protests that are currently happen).

Developing a model about how to create, measure and control all the possible sustainable activities around two specific watersheds we want o prove the sustainability of Ecoparks surrounding those rivers providing employment and water security through the specific selection of those processes and activities, quantifying financial, environmental and social impacts of them.

This model can be applied to amazon river or any other from the watersheds to the ocean and in all Andean water sources, having a clear map of the water and the projects mapped around those, we can use the watershed order plan teams around the country to cascade the project if it comes feasible.

What is your solution?

Create a pilot model and use digital information to control and measure all the sustainable dimensions of the project to be able to integrate all the possible sustainable activities that can contribute to take care of the watershed and create job opportunities for local communities and at the same time create a map showing water quantity and quality and projects around those rivers.

If after running the pilot and taking all the results the project is feasible it can be multiplied in other areas in Colombia and Latin America.

Talking about science and academy, the project needs all the posible 4.0 available technologies to measure puntual but periodically or online water quantity and quality to be able to measure the impact of the activities like reforestation, conservation projects, water sanitation, etc. That allows the verification system for green water bonds and other indicators to guarantee the positive impact on sustainability of the selected projects around the ecosystem.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

The population will be the neighbours of the two rivers Arroyohondo and Rio Negro in Valle del Cauca and Antioquia respectively, most of 80% of them are stratum 3, 2 and 1. Those communities doesn't have water sanitation in and out of their communities taking the water directly from the river and serving the wastewater back without treatment, we have two of the members of our association living in these two communities and knowing so close about their needs and they will be the leaders of the projects in those watersheds. They are in constant communication because they are part of the local community government taking care of the river and this pilot can provide solutions for the local economy and if it is feasible can be multiplied in other similar conditions.

At the same time universities and academy can help creating skills and new knowledge to train these communities about how to do it in a sustainable way and giving administrative tools to make it last and grow.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Aggregate local projects to enable access to financial capital for ecosystem services such as natural hazard mitigation, water quality, and carbon storage.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

1. We will be able to measure how much water increase after reforesting and applying all the sustainable projects.

2. Having a project mapping, selecting which of them are sustainable and can cope with the purpose of growing the river in quantity and quality the national resources like royalties and green funds can be addressed properly and this can not happen at this time because the lack of information and resources to make the model and the pilot.

3. The activities will be developed by the local communities.

4. This project helps on climate action cause reforestations and sustainable projects.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Yumbo, Valle del Cauca, Colombia

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

We started one month ago to develop the concept and we have had 4 sessions formulating the model, the preselected activities, the risks, the opportunities, the stakeholders and we are going to present this initiative in a Barcamp hold by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network next week

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Lina Maria Aguirre Montoya (Executive Director)