Date: November 29, 2006
Location: Session Room – UFMG Rectory

The transposition of the São Francisco River has been discussed in Brazil since the Empire. It is said that D. Pedro II offered crown jewels to facilitate the transfer of the São Francisco basin to the Northern Northeast. In the first half of the 80s of the last century, the project was presented at the initiative of sectors of the Union government at the time. The debate has been developing and has permeated all governments, regardless of their ideological features. At the end of 2002, an executive engineering project was prepared with two water transfer axes: to the north, reaching Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte, and to the east, reaching Pernambuco and Paraíba. In 2003, the project was resumed and since then it has been the scene of controversy in various governmental and non-governmental spaces, as well as academia and the media. The project is currently suspended due to the judiciary and an agreement signed by the president of the republic with the Catholic bishop Luiz Cappio.

The main divergences surrounding the project are contained in the following thematic axes: a) differences in conception regarding the degree of possible intervention in rivers, including parameters and limits to be considered, b) conception regarding the type and way of stimulating the economic development of the Brazilian semi-arid region, c) current water availability in the São Francisco basin for various water uses, d) water availability in the northern Northeast, e) social, economic and environmental reach of the project. F) legal issues, g) possibility of revitalizing São Francisco.

The Federal University of Minas Gerais is the largest university in the São Francisco basin, a situation that places it in a privileged position to participate in this debate with criticisms, suggestions and presentation of proposals for the revitalization of the São Francisco basin and for the sustainable development of the semi- -Brazilian arid region that begins in Minas Gerais.

Thomaz da Matta Machado

Professor at the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Works in the Internship subjects in Public Health and Environmental Health. Full member of the State Water Resources Council of the State of Minas Gerais since 2003. He holds a degree in Medicine from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (1978), a Master’s degree (2001) and a Doctorate (2007) in Public Health from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Full member of the São Francisco River Basin Committee between 2003 and 2010 and president from 2007 to 2010. He has experience in the area of ​​Public Health, with an emphasis on epidemiology, hydrographic basin, biomonitoring and river revitalization. Organizer of the book The Revitalization of Rivers in the World: America, Europe and Asia.