A Landscape Urbanism Perspective for a Truly Inclusive City

The Triple Frontera is a dynamic urban-rural metropolitan area located on the border of three different countries. It roughly comprises areas of the South American continent between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina, where local indigenous Guarani communities coexist with close to 2,000,000 inhabitants distributed in four municipalities. Massive deforestation of the local Atlantic Forest during the last five decades has led to a critical reconfiguration of the territory, creating irreparable environmental damage and displacement of the Guaranis.

Indigenous ancestral land is severely threatened by rapid urban sprawl, construction of new infrastructure and expansion of unsustainable agribusiness production. The situation is aggravated by the climate crisis, which is increasing the scale, intensity and the number of seasonal fires, heat waves, drought and floods. Current ‘development’ is continuously compromising the habitat of indigenous communities, forcing their migration to urban centres and erasing their traditional ways of living and survival.

In this research study, an inclusive city is one that welcomes a variety of cultural ways of inhabiting the territory co-existing in a balanced way with the landscape. The Triple Frontera metropolitan area is not defined just by its urban core, but also by its surrounding forest and agricultural landscape, and the diversity of cultures inhabiting the land. Placing the socio-spatial justice at the centre, the integration of rural migrants and indigenous groups into contemporary metropolitan areas is a scarcely explored topic in the Paraguayan context. To address the situation of this vulnerable population, landscape urbanism is used as an alternative lens to study the transformation of the territory and propose new ways of inhabiting it on two very different scales: the continental scale and the community scale.

Current ‘development’ is continuously compromising the habitat of indigenous communities

Scale 1: The Guarani Territory, a landscape beyond geopolitical boundaries

From a landscape perspective, the territory can be interpreted as a system of ecological layers that incorporate the complexities of human-nature relations beyond geopolitical borders. From this holistic perspective, the Guarani Territory is the landscape originally occupied by a multitude of native cultures encompassed under the name Guarani. The territory is embedded within large ecological matrices of forest and water.

•Water: La Plata River basin is the third largest in the continent and its extensive rivers and wetlands compose the base ecological structure of the aquatic landscape of the Guarani people. At the foot of the Guarani territory, an immense body of water matches the amount of moving water on the surface. It is called the Guarani Aquifer and is one of the largest water reserves in the world, extending 1.1 million square kilometres and crossing four countries. Although the Guarani did not have scientific evidence of its existence, the presence of this colossal water reserve is manifested in their religious and mythological experiences.

•Forest: The Atlantic Forest ecoregion used to be a vast sub-tropical forest extending to the ocean coast. It has been classified as one of the forests with the greatest biological diversity in the world, and is considered a biodiversity hotspot by the WWF Global 200. One of the most endangered areas on earth, only 10% of its original coverage subsists in a highly fragmented landscape. This is home to the Guarani people, who historically inhabited, cultivated and moved through the forest under the principle of reciprocity: equity between human beings and nature. Guarani agro-ecology was based on a forest-farming culture, with intense knowledge of soils and plant properties, in order to allow regeneration of the forest and ‘not leaving deserts behind’.

This territory not only shares a common pre-colonial and colonial past, but also current dynamics and conflicts that make it necessary to understand it as a non-fragmented system. Currently, the expansion of soy industrial agriculture that covers an area of more than 46 million hectares across the Guarani territory is one of the biggest threats. Soy agri-business is an extractive activity based on the mining of water and nutrients from the soil with the use of technology and chemical products, without replenishing them naturally. It responds to a neoliberal model supported by foreign capital, which to sustain itself promotes construction of large infrastructure such as dams, international bridges, highways and growing urban centres. As a consequence, radical changes in the occupation of the Guarani territory causes degradation of the natural landscape and exclusion of traditional knowledge.

Scale 2: Reversing landscapes through regenerative forest urbanism

The next scale of study is an area on the rural fringe of the metropolitan area of the Paraguayan Triple Frontera. Located in an undulated landscape of hills and valleys, the rivers Paraná and Monday and a vast network of streams structure the site. Several fragments of the Atlantic Forest, either national parks or on private land, remain part of the landscape. Here, Guarani indigenous communities coexist with soy industrial agriculture fields. The construction of a new international bridge on the site will likely lead to the urbanisation of the area, following the patterns of development previously discussed.

Here, landscape urbanism is used as a tool to think of new ways of inhabiting, understanding the logics of ecology to recover deteriorated landscapes and re-incorporating the Guarani ethos into the territory. The vision is to allocate spaces in the metropolitan territory as areas of agro-ecological reforestation, addressing the dissociation between settlement and production. Integrating reforestation, settlement and production, could allow these vulnerable communities access to land and sustainable food production systems, ensuring resilience and sustenance, while protecting existing forests and repairing soils with a regenerative approach. Two main strategies are proposed:

Adopting tourism as an instrument to activate landscape transformation processes can take advantage of the topographic particularities, magnificent scenery and history of the site

1. Reverse deforestation with native productive forests

Transform extractive agriculture systems into productive forests, re-inserting native species with high potential value in local and international markets, combining them in agroforestry systems, and diversifying the variety of cultivated products. The objective is to promote organic production systems, which do not require added chemicals, and which work with the climatic logics of the place. Three native species from the Atlantic Forest are re-introduced: Yerba Mate or ‘Ka’a’ (Ilex Paraguaiensis), Stevia natural sweetener (Stevia Rebaudiana) and ‘Palmito’ heart of palm (Euterpe Edulis). Furthermore, productive forest figures serve as fringe and shelter for Guarani communities. A combination of banana, sugarcane, fruit trees, farmed forests and Guarani religious trees form a barrier of privacy for the community and at the same time expand their landscapes of proximity, the paths and trails of their domestic life, improving habitats and extending their territories beyond demarcated limits.

2. Regenerate soils and habitats with agro-ecotourism

Adopting tourism as an instrument to activate landscape transformation processes can take advantage of the topographic particularities, magnificent scenery and history of the site, while accompanying reforestation and organic production processes. Monoculture fields and empty plots are transformed into tourism farms, to invite people to (temporally) inhabit productive forested landscapes while favouring exchange and permanence of Guarani forest knowledge. Part of the strategy is to promote the creation of cooperatives and association of small producers, giving space for economical competitive organic agriculture that can counterpart agri-business. Designation of potential forested agricultural lands for tourism can put a stop to land speculation and guide it to favour healthy habitats for both humans and non-humans.

A truly inclusive city

A multiscale study of the Triple Frontera metropolitan area through the perspective of landscape urbanism expands the concept of what a truly inclusive city should be. Employing a landscape approach to redefine a Guarani Territory on top of existing geopolitical contemporary boundaries, asserts the rights of indigenous peoples as original inhabitants of those lands, in an effort to break down postcolonial structures that continue to marginalise vulnerable communities.

On the local scale, the strategies proposed seek to secure access to land, empowering vulnerable urban groups by the re-appropriation of the means of production. Implementation of agro-ecosystems, sustainable housing and holistic living through landscape regeneration systems strives for climate resilience and socio-spatial justice. By linking urban and rural fragments in the context of the Guarani Territory, it is possible to start a process that integrates indigenous communities as active stakeholders of territorial dynamics, an inclusive territory that favours a healthy relationship between biodiversity and human growth.

Mentors: Kelly Shannon & Bruno de Meulder

All Graphics: Author