Baixada do Maciambu - Santa Catarina/Brazil
About a touristic point of view and the invisible resistance If we visit a place without understanding about the local resistances, we may contribute unintentionally to its destruction. Who looks at our photos or visits Guarda do Embaú without getting in touch with the local reality, won't understand how how much fight is hidden behind its dunes and shallow waters, from the restinga to the swamp areas. This estuary, where the "Rio dá Madre" river nesta the sea, is localized at the Maciambu flatlands, a flat region situated at the coast of the Santa Catarina state, which inclusões the beaches Pinheira, Guarda do Embaú and Sonho such as several communities and settlements. The main part of this flatlands was under environmental protection since 1975 índice the State Park "Serra do Tabuleiro". But in 2009, by the use of a political trick with the intention of exploitation and immobility speculation, the State Law n°14.661/2009 was passed. This law took a big part of the flatlands out of the park and transformed it into a different kind of environmental protection area called APA, nothing more as a less restrictive conservation unit which allows human occupation and variated economic activities. In the urban development plans of the municipalities located in the area, which have been approved without any transparency and involvement of the population, is foreseen the construction of buildings up to 12 floors an increase of the population up to 300 thousand until 2030 where today live around 15 thousand. As an reaction about this situation, the local population started to stick together and fight for the preservation of the environment with means of the initiative SOS Rio da Madre, a group which fights for a participative and collective development, aligned with the maintenance of the social-environmental quality of the region.