Interviews with local stakeholders

As mentioned before, the purpose of my trip to Coimbra was to find out from local stakeholders their opinions on the Polis project in Coimbra.  In total, I spoke to 5 stakeholders.  The stakeholders I spoke to were experts in the domains of botany, ecology, urban history, architecture, and environmental education.  More importantly, they are knowledgeable about Coimbra and were more or less directly involved with the Polis project.  Those that were less directly involved had followed the project closely, and in my research they also play the role of informed and engaged citizens of Coimbra.  

Because the Polis program was carried out at the national level, the opinion of local stakeholders are important in evaluating the success of each project.  Environmental planning professor Graça Saraiva at the Istituto Tecnico Superior (IST) at Lisbon has been involved in the evaluation of river rehabilitation projects, working with URBEM at the European level to identify indicators with which to evaluate such projects.  She and her colleagues at IST came up with the Riprocity evaluation framework, which recognizes that the success of restoration of urban rivers must consider three inter-dependent variables: the ecology and hydrology of the rivers, the physical form of the city, and the perception and satisfaction of the city's residents on the river.  

My research project to Coimbra feeds into this third leg of Riprocity.  People's perception includes how people respond and develop a sense of identity - and eventually, stewardship - with the river in their city, but also dwells into larger issues such as institutional framework for the management of rivers in urban areas.

To respect their privacy, I will not relate the information I gathered with specific stakeholders.  However, I will list their names and affiliations here to add credit to the quality of local information I present here.  Worth repeating is the fact that the interviews were conducted in English and French because I do not speak Portuguese.  They are:

1.  Professor Santiago Faria, architect and urban historian, currently teaching in the University of Lusíada in Famalição and previously taught at Escola Universidad Vasco de Gama in Coimbra.  He led the development of the plan for urban revitalization of the historical center of Coimbra, and wrote extensively, including his Sorbonne dissertation, about the physical evolution of the city of Coimbra

2.  António Luís Campos, president of the regional board of Quercus,  a national environmental NGO active in raising environmental awareness, focusing on the role of land development on the environment.  He is a freelance photographer

3.  Dr. Pedro Caseleiro, director/curator of the Museu da Ciência (Museum of Science), University of Coimbra

4.  Professor Helena Freitas, botanist and ecosystem scientist, currently director at the Department of Botany and Jardim Botanico in Coimbra

5.  Professor María José Castro, urban ecologist, biostatistician, and animal behavior researcher, currently teaching at Escola Universidad Vasco de Gama

I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their time.  (Apparently August is a nationally recognized vacation time!)