•Notícia

This is the 'Morro de Moravia' (Medellin, Colombia), a mountain of garbage, where they lived until recently more than 10,000 people.

Researchers at the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at UPC are working with sustainable technologies to convert a rubbish dump of the Colombian city of Medellin in a urban park for the citizens, with a ecomuseum and Scientific-Technological Center to serve as a testing ground for several groups of researchers involved in the project. To do so, they combine the natural treatment technologies such as constructed wetlands, and buffer strips, strips of vegetation that absorb and help to the degradation of pollutants.

The city of Medellin, during the 70s and 80s saw a spate of displaced persons from rural areas who settled spontaneously, with barracks, on a large garbage dump located next to the bus station. This settlement is known as El Morro de Moravia. The health situation that suffered the people from this rubbish dump neighborhood was appalling. With the mayor Sergio Fajardo and within the whole process of transformation that is taking place in Medellin, Colombia's Interior Ministry declared "public disaster" in the Morro de Moravia, in 2006. From this statement it launched a comprehensive intervention project that looks at different stages of action: the relocation of its inhabitants, decontamination and recovery of Morro as public space. In this major project are participating investigators of the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at UPC in Terrassa Campus as well as from the South Campus of Barcelona (Technical School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB-UPC).

The first phase of the project, and the most urgent, was to relocate more than 10,000 people living in new homes built in other areas of the city. Currently, 75% of the residents of El Morro are already living in their new homes in neighborhoods equipped with all kinds of services, thanks to the integral intervention project. Whenever a barrack is abandoned, project leaders stick a flag with the color of the new neighborhood where the family has gone to live. The process was done in a participatory manner, in accordance with community members, which are the same who are responsible for seeing that evacuated areas are not re-invaded.

The second phase of the integral intervention project involves the recovery of El Morro and treatment of many pollutants that are present. The intervention includes treatment of the leachate that was generated over the years (Leachate is the name given to the contaminant liquid that is originated with litter decomposition). For this, the municipality of Medellín counted on the experience and work of members of the Alpha network on Sustainable Technologies for Drinking and Wastewater Treatment (TECSPAR). Among the members of this network is included the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at UPC, coordinated by Jordi Morato, director of the same chair and coordinator of the Sustainable Water Management of the UPC (AQUASOST).

These researchers are already working in the Morro to turn it into a park through natural techniques of treatment, as the combination of buffer strips and wetland construction. The buffer strips are strips of vegetation, imitating the fringes bordering the river channels. Its natural structure controls the air, soil and water quality, acts as filters of nutrients and pesticides, helps to keep the flow of these elements, and thus, reduces their arrival at the same channel. The constructed wetlands are low cost systems consisting of shallow channels where water circulates in the underground through a granular medium in contact with the roots of typical plants of natural wetlands. The water is purified through a combination of physical, chemical and especially biological phenomena.

The combination of the buffer strip with the construction of wetlands will treat some of the water that seeps through the waste accumulated over the years. Also, thanks to this combination it will be possible to capture filtered water so as to prevent and stop pollution of aquifers, groundwater and the generation of more leachate.

And all in an economical way, because these actions are low cost, with minimal after-care, they are made in a simple way, without energy consumption and they do not generate waste or odors and mosquitoes.

With financing from international agencies (Agència Catalana de Cooperació per al Desenvolupament (ACCD) and Agència Espanyola de Cooperació Internacional per al Desenvolupament (AECI), the UPC researchers have designed a demonstration plant, which will apply these technologies in one zone of the Morro to be converted into a park. In this way they will help to reduce the transformation time of what once was a huge mountain of trash into a park with biodiversity.

The construction project of the Morro de Moravia Park is coordinated by Jordi Morató, director of the UNESCO Chair of Sustainability at UPC. Some researchers from the same Chair of the Group of Sustainable Water Management participate in this project, such as Alex Pires, Ángeles Ortiz, Ángel Gallegos, José Weisman and Alice Miranda. And other members of the chair related to the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) from the UPC, coordinated by Professor Sandra Bestraten.

The UPC’s UNESCO Sustainability Chair, the Medellín Mayor’s Office, the Antioquía Institute of Technology, the Metropolitan Area of Valle de Aburrá, the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD), and the Barcelona City Council work together to organize and promote Moravia Week, a participatory event held in July each year. The aim of the event is to involve the local community in urban processes and environmental integration. One example of this is the construction of community gardens that can now be seen and enjoyed in spaces that used to be part of El Morro. The community gardens were created with the participation of 25 community leaders trained by the UNESCO Chair. Workshops on the project were also held in schools. In addition to the social role they play, the gardens, which were generated through composting of plant material, contribute to landscape and ecological transformation.

This year a documentary made by the Catalan public broadcaster TV3 was screened during Moravia Week. Barracas: la ciudad olvidada (“Shantytown: The Forgotten City”) examines Barcelona’s shantytown period from the perspective of those who inhabited these areas. After the screening, participants said they identified with those who gave firsthand accounts in the film.

In fact, Barcelona went through a process similar to the recovery of Morro de Moravia: the city’s botanical garden, located on Montjuic, now flourishes on the site of a former garbage dump.


The actors involved in the community garden project have also organized an exhibition entitled Recycling the City: Moravia – A Process of Transformation in Medellín. The show focuses on the recovery of El Morro and launches a reflection on actions that transform degraded urban areas. A range of issues are addressed, including participation, planning and management, and the establishment of an institutional framework conducive to making projects sustainable. The exhibition will be staged in Barcelona in the near future.