The Municipal Administration of Ypacaraí is in charge of a community of 14,495 inhabitants distributed in 4 urban neighbourhoods and 8 rural settlements. Its administrative structure includes such basic dependencies as needed to qualify for the category of "small municipality".

Ypacaraí is located in the basin of its namesake lake, 39 km away from the capital of the country. Due to its location it serves as a dormitory and transitory city. Within this territory, real estate speculation and the lack of land distribution planing have led to a very much disorganised urban growth, inappropriate use of the territory and inadequate management of natural water and green resources.

The contamination of the Ypacaraí lake caused by several waterways that converge in it, cannot be traced back in time. Different studies have been conducted to this end by several national and international institutions and organisations; their results presented a large number of proposals to solve the contamination problem and the recovery of such an important natural resource.

However, little has been done to carry out effective and efficient measures. Streams like the Ybyraty, that traverse the municipalities, represent the main contamination channels as they are polluted by a whole range of contaminants: industrial effluents, sewage effluents, household waste, solid waste, etc. In addition, riverbanks and stream banks are occupied by owners of neighbouring lands as the current legislation is not enforced and environmental policies have been absent from the agendas of the Municipalities for a long time. Ypacaraí is no exception. The Ibyraty stream ends up in an important stream called Ypuku which, in turn, ends up in the Ypacaraí.

In order to contribute to the improvement of the environmental management of the Basin and the recovery of the Ypacaraí Lake, the municipality has invited institutions such as Alter Vida and the Paraguay Decentralisation Project (PRODEP) to undertake a Strategic Planning with citizen participation to promote such objective. It must be pointed out that such institutions presented a draft of the Plan that still needs to be turned into a final draft. This was started in July 1998 and went up to September 1999.

Within this context, the Municipality of Ypacaraí has focused its action to improve urban conditions in several aspects (enhancement of streets and squares, tree planting, illumination of public spaces, etc.) encouraging co-management and co-responsibility of the population with their own environment.

Due to budget limitations the Municipality does not have specific sectors for planning and environmental issues. Therefore, it does not have qualified staff. This is a limitation to is management capacity. In general, it turns to external experts in order to have the necessary support when action is needed.

To implement the project on the Recovery and Management of the Ybyraty Stream, the above-mentioned steps were taken. On the basis of the expertise of the hired experts, an intervention-action proposal was developed. This was the result of an assessment on the reality of our stream. In addition, we already had some experience from the Asunción Municipality, for example, with the Mburicao Stream.

The problems arising along the stream require, in some cases, more profound proposals for solution as in the case of rain and sewage drains. The Ypacaraí Municipality still does not have these services even though this is one of the main reasons for household contamination problems. As mentioned before, this situation led to planning for the implementation of an intervention-action proposal to recover and use empty areas along the stream, in the strip of land that crosses the urban area of Ypacaraí.

To develop areas for education-recreation that use the stream as an instrument for environmental education to preserve water resources of Ypacaraí.

To provide the citizens the opportunity of recreational and educational leisure according to their needs, by creating safe, differentiated spaces with the right design to perform recreational activities.

To gain alternative spaces to develop community recreational programmes along the stream banks and in future construct public walks along the streams.

To recover the Railway Station as part of the collective memory of the city of Ypacaraí, by experimenting on the possibilities offered by the stream through educational programmes for the community.

To strengthen the co-management of different social actors and institutions within the Municipality.

To awaken the need in the community to recover the Stream as a space with a potential and landscape value to accommodate areas for community use.

To reach an agreement with another Central Government body (Carlos Antonio López Central Railway) and the Municipality of Ypacaraí on the public use of land owned by the Railway, with an aim to develop environmental and cultural programmes.

To conduct physical interventions along the stream to explain the project and demonstrate effectively the different alternatives to solve each specific reality presented along the stream. Alternative materials and technologies will be used.

To foster the development of programmes for community use of areas around the stream. This will be possible through joint management with the institutions.

To establish basic equipment in the empty areas so that the community owns them.

To make the empty areas visible in order to rediscover the stream and its potential and the problems that it currently faces (contamination, erosion, etc.)

To articulate the private interest of the neighbours with the general interest to improve their environment.

The methodology adopted for the different activities was the participatory one, going from the dissemination of the project through meetings with neighbours, secondary education students, the Sanitation Board, The Ypacaraí Cooperative, representatives from neighbours committees and the Municipality itself. The support was in the form of visual aids, panels with pictures, perspectives of improved and/or recovered areas, slide projections. Thus their points of interest were surveyed in order to adjust further interventions as best as possible.

Water contamination was reduced by moving away a tannery that was dumping effluents into the stream.

Alternatives were implemented to control erosion along the banks of the stream.

The stream was highlighted as a scenic and tourism resource for the city dwellers.

Definition of a mechanism for the management of minor water resources within the Municipality.

Preparation of a Municipal Regulation draft to be considered by the Municipal Board.

Involvement of young people and neighbours in the cleaning tasks and awareness of the population.

Bridge for vehicles over the Sgto. Duré street and protection walls.

Temporary closure of the municipal slaughterhouse that dumped waste into the stream, until waste treatment works are completed and installations upgraded.

Awareness of the population living near the stream in the sense of not dumping their solid waste into the waterways.

Immediate replication of activities in a nearby rural community due to the initiative of the neighbours of the area close to a waterway.

Drafting of a proposal for an ecological park by the experts of the Colegio de Don Bosco.

Preparation of profiles for future projects:

• Improved Railway Station

• Bicycle paths in the Central Square, Railway sector

• Community project between Bridges

• Educational Area for traffic

In order to perform a critical evaluation, two aspects stand out:

Development of activities that gave the Project visibility; easy replication; in this sense, the municipal staff was trained for future intervention.

Involve the citizens’ interest around the issue of making the best use of free space around watercourses.

Having involved the younger sector in all activities which allowed for the development of future proposals.

Having established an agreement with the Carlos A. López Railway to take advantage of the railway strip and for the implementation of other environmental and cultural enhancement projects.

Lack of a body or specific dependence within the municipal structure. This is due to budget constraints within the institution.

The project was not related to any priority need, according to the population. This situation did not favour their massive involvement.

Impact can be assessed from the perspective of the actions and interventions conducted. The latter, in general, were very beneficial for the Ypacaraí community. Namely:

Several equipped areas

Preparation of 5 project profiles

An agreement with a Central Government body with important presence in the Municipality of Ypacaraí.

The preparation of a proposal for an ecological park in a Technical College whose land is considerably and is crossed by the stream.

Preparation of an environmental education manual for the treatment of streams. Prepared by a municipality in co-authorship with the community.

Local legislation related to the management of minor water resources.

Transfer of contaminating factory and temporary closure of the municipal slaughterhouse.

In terms of lessons learnt at the social participation level the importance of generating projects from and with the same people who will become beneficiaries or with whom we ant to work, is very important. To consider their priorities in advance, to build on the concepts jointly so as to favour their growth and development processes, to awaken their conscience as citizens, our society is highly dependent as a result of an excessive political clientelism and, in many cases, they just wait for their leaders or institutions to take steps to contribute to their demands and needs as people. The vision is still very short-range and its interest is much more related to visible actions.

Likewise, the involvement of the younger sector has had a much more multiplying effect as it involves whole educational institutions and they are developing a broader awareness as citizens. In addition, the support of a private company was very satisfactory.

It was considered important to proceed with communication and dissemination activities mainly through educational institutions. This includes visits by educators and students to the places were equipment, posters, etc. were left marking a difference between "before" and "after", talking to neighbours to brief radio broadcasts at the local level with the use of the educational manual, with knowledge of the municipal regulations, restrictions, etc.

Basically, at this point we expect the pragmatic experience developed to be replicated in other places within the municipality and outside the municipality, thus improving the community’s participatory process, stemming from the particular interest of the dwellers to create a global awareness in terms of environmental management.

On the other hand, the implementation of these profiled projects will be very important as it helps construe the global vision, bring together specific tasks and leave no loose ends.

In terms of recommendations, it would be timely to mention the previous evaluation of weaknesses and the capacity of both institutions and people, the expectations of beneficiaries, their priorities and interests, to start with a joint construction process in order to design the project we want them to get involved with and committed to.