The river and wetlands system of the Bogotá region, central Colombia, forms the very ecological core of the geography, history and memories of Bogotá city and the Cundinamarca department. The Bogotá River, with 375 km, crosses the Bogotá Savanna from north to south, eventually reaching the Magdalena River, the country’s main fluvial artery. The headwater region is 3,400 meters above sea level in the Guacheneque Highlands in a páramo socioecosystem. Twelve kilometres downstream, the river begins to receive waste from tanneries and quarries, pesticides and fertilizers, as well as load releases from the sewers of industries and cities, turning it into one of the most contaminated rivers in the world. The riverbed transformation in the floodplain mirrors the rapid urbanization processes of the region, ushered during the 20th Century and still ongoing. In the last decade, public actors and riverine communities concern over the river’s restoration has triggered the development of daily care actions and new infrastructures to restore the wetland-based of the Bogotá River. The coexistence of these initiatives, importantly grounded in the distinct and divergent memories and river understandings and representations of both collective communitarian conservation practices and public-private water governance schemes, generates socioenvironmental conflicts as well as collaborations.

PhD researcher: Laura Giraldo Martínez

The Bogotá system of rivers and wetlands forms the ecological core of the history and memories of Bogotá city and the Cundinamarca department (Colombia). The Bogotá River is also considered today one of the most contaminated rivers in the country. During the last decade, restoring the river and protecting its sources, located in a páramo ecosystem, has been crucial. Currently, collective conservation practices and public-private governance schemes coexist in the headwaters. The actor interactions are based on and foster both collaboration efforts as well as conflicts, in particular as reaction to expert-based, top-down and ahistorical river interventions. A critical analysis of the historical planning and re-patterning process in Bogotá River’s headwaters is lacking. Public, private and communitarian initiatives have executed their own river enlivening practices but with different river understandings and proposes, clashing with their future visions and process of recovering socio-ecological river life. Therefore, this investigate how river memories and care actions differ per actor group and river scale, and how these dynamically relate through the river network, in dialogue and encounter between collective actions and governance proposals to enlivening the river. This research draw on human geography and political ecology discussions about river scales, knowledge and its representation regarding grassroots self-organized initiatives and public-private alliances which in trigger new social relations and spatial configuration to support new imaginaries and future-making.