Watch Day: Embracing Serra da Moeda

An embrace is a special gesture. It conveys affection, and promotes connection and closeness.

For many people, an embrace contains plenty of vital energy and tonus, strengthening people. An embrace could even cure diseases.

For all that, the meeting of thousands of people around a mountain, a heritage of all, aiming to embrace it, is something unique.

The first embrace in the Serra da Moeda happened on June 9, 2007, and was one of the first actions of the newly created organization ARCA. The unprecedented embrace enlisted the help of other organizations and citizens of the surroundings and from the state capital, Belo Horizonte.

Now imagine several groups embracing our Serra da Moeda. We did that in 2014, during the Serra da Moeda Watch Day. Many embraces, each bringing at least one claim of public policy for a specific area of the mountain range. Among them, the creation of a state park at Serra da Calçada, the expansion of the Mãe d’Água Natural Monument and of the Fechos Wilderness Area, and the preservation of the Arêdes Wilderness Area.

These events strengthened the network of non-governmental organizations and mobilized thousands of people for the sake of protecting this important natural and cultural heritage that is threatened. It is a symbolic way of bringing people together and say no to greed.

It is no longer possible to prioritize economic interests, because they can lead to the irreversible destruction of the Serra da Moeda and their communities.