Ire over proposed 'eco-barriers' in Rio de Janeiro

To the Times of London, Ferreira de Mello said simply, "it's an offence to human dignity."

Government officials say such talk is unwarranted. Icaro Moreno Junior, the president of the Rio state public works department, told the Times of London that if the government did not protect the forest, it would disappear within a decade. “We are protecting the forest," he said. "We’re not dividing people.... It’s crazy to compare it to the wall of Berlin or the wall of the Gaza Strip.”

But suspicions of an ulterior motive aren't totally unfounded. The Reuters story reports:

Many of Rio's hundreds of slums are controlled by heavily armed drug gangs that have further alienated them from the rest of the beach-side city. Despite regular, violent raids on slums, police have largely failed to bring them under control. The city's forest is sometimes used by gangs as a refuge and as a training ground, adding to suspicions that security is the main reason for the walls....

The choice of location for the walls has also raised some eyebrows. Of the 13 communities, 12 are in the wealthy southern district, home to the city's glitziest homes, restaurants and its famous beaches. Walls are only planned for one community in the city's western zone, even though analysts say those slums are expanding at an even faster pace.

Wall critics also point out that Rio will host the World Cup in 2014, and that it has bid to host the Olympics in 2016. It's using the Atlantic forest as cover for cleaning up the city in anticipation, they charge. Indeed, as COHA report points out, the "wall them in" approach has been implemented before. In anticipation of the 2008 Olympics, Chinese authorities built walls around Beijing slums.

But the COHA report, posted earlier this month, also suggests that favela-dwellers and Rio authorities may have reached a middle ground.

The Rocinha favela – perhaps now considered more of a neighborhood than a slum due to its large size – proposed an alternative solution to which the government has recently agreed. There will still be a barrier between the favela and the forest, but rather than looming walls it will take the shape of a park, with nature paths and a space the community can use. There will be stretches of walls, but they will be no higher than three feet, and the taller walls will only be built in areas deemed at high risk of landslides.If the purpose of the walls is truly to protect the environment, the Rocinha solution demonstrates that better options than the eco-barriers exist. It also indicates that the government is sometimes willing to compromise. While the Rocinha example lends hope that other communities could successfully lobby for a similar compromise, one is left to wonder why eco-walls are still the plan-in-waiting for the other favelas.

Editor’s note: For more articles about the environment, see the Monitor’s main environment page, which offers information on many environment topics. Also, check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed.

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