Water People Connection

This project explores the cultural significance of wetlands and the connection and stories of people with their water.

The aim is to understand and transform how societies see, value and impact wetlands.

Find a 9 minute introduction to the project in my YouTube channel Pia's Journey!

(click on the picture above)

I explore the relationship between humans and water, with an emphasis on freshwater ecosystems and women – but not only. I observe and document the changes linked to the water crisis, and the role this plays for the local people.

I hold a PhD in wetland ecology and have worked in Brazilian Amazonia most of my scientific life. As a photographer, I employ visual communication to integrate scientific knowledge and data with nature conservation.

I lead interviews and take social documentary photographs of people and water since 1986.

I rely on the synergies of science, visual communication and art to communicate over borders and find solutions which help protect and conserve wetlands, and the people who live there.

Page and project under construction

Please check my Instagram page

@water.people.connection

Introduction

My water and people stories are my personal story. I was born in a former wetland, strongly modified by humans over 2000 years or more. My life as a scientific researcher was focused on freshwater wetlands, tropical floodplains, and their use by people.

 have been photographing landscapes, water, people, wildlife, plants, forests all my life. I am a biologist, researcher with a PhD in tropical biology and floodplain ecology. I have seen many tropical countries all over the world and always visited the wetlands.

Today, I go back in memory and read my diaries. Every day I wrote what I saw, what I thought, whom I talked to and what I learned. The world is changing and over the decades, I recorded some of this change.

I was born in 1965, and in 1986, as a young biologist m, I made my dream,m come true and went to the Amazon for the first time in my life. I went back there several dozens of times, and I lived there for many years.

Today, I am back in Europe where I was born, but I am still closely connected to my friends, colleagues and people who struggle about water all over the world.

Let me take you on this journey through the wetlands and the people I met in almost 6 decades.

#waterpeople #waterpeoplesmiles #waterpeopleconnection #riverculture #rivers #freshwater #floodplain #wetlands #connectedtonature

This project explores the cultural significance of wetlands and the stories of people and their water.

#piaparolinphoto