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Preface: Public Policies Without Active Listening Don’t Bring Change

The “International Favelas Conference,” which took place on March 17 and 18, organized by the Brazilian Institute of Architects’ Rio de Janeiro chapter (IAB-RJ), and Rio de Janeiro’s state government, to promote the Integrated City Program, had zero participation of favela residents. One of the slogans on its promotional cards and social media posts read “Integrated Cities: Past, Present and Future.” The verb tenses chosen to communicate this institutional message are reminiscent of Sankofa, an African symbol that calls for the recollection of past mistakes and learning in the present, leading to a wise future.

Unfortunately, however, there was no wisdom and much less learning to be had. Integrated City, which is based on other programs implemented in favelas since the 1990s, has been anything but innovative. In its promoters’ vision, it seeks to integrate the so-called informal city with the formal one—in other words, to insert the favela into the city which, according to this logic, unlike the favela itself, is well planned. But we are already familiar with these politics of discontinuity, in which government plans go unfinished, are badly managed and don’t yield the results they claim to seek.

It is worth remembering that the Integrated City program was launched by means of a police operation in the Jacarezinho favela, in Rio’s North Zone, on January 19, 2022, eight months after the Jacarezinho Massacre, which was defended by now-former governor Cláudio Castro. Until then, this had been the largest massacre in the state’s history.

The Event

On the first day (17), in the auditorium attached to Guanabara Palace (the governor’s residence), lectures were delivered by two foreign anthropologists with decades of experience in favelas, Janice Perlman and Santiago Uribe, moderated by Sérgio Magalhães, founder of the Favela-Bairro favela upgrading program. They sought to debate current issues faced by the state of Rio, present Perlman’s research and understand the great success story of Medellín, Colombia, which was once known for extreme violence and has since become a reference for social urbanism. The afternoon ended with a site visit to the Pavão-Pavãozinho/Cantagalo favelas in Ipanema.

On Wednesday (18), the event was at IAB-RJ’s headquarters and began with a collaborative architectural workshop to plan an urban intervention in a public park. In the afternoon, the program concluded with a roundtable involving Marcelo Burgos, Janice Perlman, Gerônimo Leitão, Mario Brum, Pedro Abramo, Manoel Ribeiro and Sérgio Magalhães.

The talks given by the event’s protagonists often echoed similar reflections: to move forward with hope, thinking that the city is you, is me and that we already propose solutions through the projects we work on.

But in none of these spaces were the few favela residents and organizers in attendance—the primary experts—given the space, voice and attention they were due.

RioOnWatch went to the “international favelas conference” to hear these voices. Voices that only appeared at the end of the lectures, when the few residents and organizers present, the people who actually build and fight every day to improve these communities, expressed themselves on the microphone or during field activities. It is worth noting that these voices found the event promotions online: they were not intentionally invited. 

The Event(‘s) Marginalized Voices (in Both Senses)

For decades, scholars have used favelas as a means for academic debate and experimentation, without significant return or collaboration with local residents. The favela residents who build their communities are left invisible in these processes, without permission to participate as the agents of multiple intelligences that they are, seen at most as sources of data and guides through alleyways, because planning is an object of academic and political interest, with a focus on infrastructure, overlooking a fundamental structure for existence: the individual, the human being.

During the event’s site visit to recently renovated public facilities in Cantagalo [which the State is calling “multi-service complex” while residents still affectionately describe it as the Brizolão], in the shiny new space meant for residents’ coexistence and social projects, we came across a notice that, starting on March 26, it will also serve as a base for a Military Police battalion. Although promoted as the first public policy to address both public security and social infrastructure within a single framework, Integrated City is reminiscent of the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs), which, together with the UPP Social, were once described as a utopia. In the end, this program harmed residents’ physical and mental health, without dialogue in most of the affected communities.

During a brief walk through the community after this visit, we heard Daniel Alves, a resident of Seropédica, in Greater Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, a specialist in the rights of socially vulnerable populations and a student of Architecture and Urbanism at the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), talk about the poor implementation of urban policies in favelas.

“By implementing a project that brings infrastructure and upgrading to the favela, we imagine that improvements in sanitation, housing and safety will bring satisfactory results… Now, we have the program (Integrated City) in Pavãozinho… Despite the investment, we still see open sewage near the entrance connecting the community and the public facility, a buildup of trash and high demand, overloading the elevators, which, during peak hours, can have lines with waits lasting several minutes.” — Daniel Alves

There is a wide gap between what is envisioned and what is implemented (guidelines that claim to seek improvements but do not materialize in the final outcome), typically resulting in the waste of public resources. This toys with the hopes of residents who dream of change that would bring adequate sanitation and other essential services for collective well-being, truly aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in line with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda call to action.

When looking at the timeline of projects, such as Rio Cidade (Rio City), Favela-Bairro (Favela-Neighborhood), Comunidade Cidade (Community City), Cidade Integrada (Integrated City) and the whole series of investments going back and recorded in the History of Favela Upgrades published here on RioOnWatch 13 years ago, one can see the discrepancy between the grand rhetoric of project launches, international publicity and the minimum change in everyday life. The city is built and defined by the logic of those on the outside—a large architectural model without resident participation, marked by urban intervention and the erasure of memory.

Zilda Soares, a resident of the Acari favela, among those in Rio with the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) numbers and increasingly impacted by desperate annual floods, is an organizer with the Fala Akari Collective, and attended both days of the event. At the end of the lectures on the morning of the first day, she gave a deep account of how the movement she is part of teaches care in favelas and is not limited to one-off implementation. It does so by preserving the memory of the struggles of mothers and grandmothers, through the political education of youth and the construction of narratives by local voices. She made reference to a previous statement by Uribe, who asked if there was a single young person or even someone up to 21 present. There wasn’t.

Research shows that, increasingly, grandmothers are taking charge of caring for their grandchildren in favelas, as a strategy of family resilience in the absence of the State, while experiencing overwork and invisibility. So, Soares asked: how can intergenerational care be put into practice alongside the work already being done by collectives? How can public policies and community agents simultaneously value the memory and leadership of mothers and grandmothers who have historically sustained our communities? And the main question is: what can the government learn from experiences such as Fala Akari’s to create policies rooted in the reality of the favela rather than in government offices?

I confess that, as a grassroots communicator and favela resident, when I arrived at the event, I expected a diverse conference built by favela residents—not the absence of residents and leaders. Even the panels lacked representation. The event positioned itself as a favela event, without favela representation or moderation. Favelas create solutions before governments and academia.

Therefore, the favela, which is young and Black, was represented only by a few who ventured to follow an Internet link to what was called the International Favelas Conference. The few in the audience were not invited.

The event was polished in discourse, well planned on paper, rhetorically developed, but poorly executed. What the organizers should have kept in mind is that the favela is rich in knowledge, needing support—not external validation. During the afternoon’s visit to the favela, policing was heavy: was it for the residents’ safety or to contain visitors’ fears? The State’s role should be collaborative, not as the gatekeeper of knowledge and access.

“The event used the name ‘International Favelas Conference’ to lend legitimacy to a security-driven government project… It wasn’t a slip-up, but the perfect distillation of the State’s policy for favelas: funding for hard infrastructure (and the police), crumbs of space for grassroots participation and lots of international shine to mask the absence of genuine listening.” — Zilda Soares, Fala Akari Collective

The event provided a platform for academia, with architects and urban planners, anthropologists, sociologists and others, including slides in English, but what about the favela resident? It’s unjust to debate the favela without favela residents. Debating a space without those who belong to it. Because keeping us invisible isn’t politics, it’s the reproduction of the elite’s eloquent enthusiasm that seeks ‘solutions’ without us.

After several failed public policies for favelas, the state of Rio de Janeiro should have already learned from its mistakes and invited those whose daily life is in their favelas.

About the author: Charlie Gomes currently studies journalism at Unesa. A radio host by training, he is a climate activist and an intern in parliamentary communication at Rio de Janeiro’s State Legislative Assembly (ALERJ). The son of northeastern Brazilians, he was born and raised in the Rocinha favela.

Support RioOnWatch’s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas by clicking here.

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Last November, RioOnWatch reported on the dismantling of the award-winning Reforestation Collective Action Program, a rare example of an effective, historic public policy in the city’s favelas. Now, various movements are coming together to demand an end to deadly tree topping, a practice that is affecting diverse neighborhoods across Rio de Janeiro, alongside the dismantling of environmental protection agencies and the destruction of the city’s iconic green areas.

In recent years, Rio de Janeiro has accumulated a deficit of over 800,000 trees removed across the city, reaching an alarming net rate of 35 trees cut down per day.

On a recent afternoon, neighbors, technical and environmental advocates gathered at the Tércio Pacitti auditorium at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UniRio), in Urca, Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone, to discuss strategies to combat the dramatic rise in predatory tree pruning (more accurately known as ‘topping‘) across the city.

Attendees represented environmental groups such as Ecological Occupation, Breathe Rio, the Engineering Club, Amagraja, Alma, the Botafogo Residents’ Association, the Rio de Janeiro Federation of Neighborhood Associations (FAM Rio), Urban Reforestation, Mão na Jaca, Living Bay Movement, Grassroots Movements Central, the Gávea Residents’ and Friends’ Association (Amagavea), the Engineers’ Union (Senge RJ), the Ecological Action Group (GAE), AMAGUINLE and Vida Movement.

Deadly Tree Topping

Pruning is a practice commonly used for ecological maintenance and conservation, involving cuts made at strategic times and in specific ways to preserve the tree and the safety of its surroundings. Predatory pruning, or ‘tree topping,’ on the other hand, occurs indiscriminately, removing branches and leaves disproportionately from its canopy, often leaving only the trunk.

The death of a tree due to topping occurs when the cut compromises its ability to regenerate. This, in turn, makes the microclimate hotter.

On Ilha do Governador, in Rio’s North Zone, in the neighborhood of Jardim Guanabara, for example, a resident pointed out the destruction on Rua Babaçu, at the corner of Rua Dom Antônio de Macedo. In the images, it is clear that the pruning went beyond what was necessary, leaving the trees with almost no canopy:

In other neighborhoods on the island, a similar process has been taking place. A resident documented the cutting of a century-old tree at Praia da Guanabara, along the waterfront, and gave a testimonial about other instances of predatory pruning that have been altering the region’s landscape and microclimate.

“Among the dozens of trees that have died early this year [2026] alone are three massive and healthy century-old trees along our waterfront (one at Praia da Bica and two at Praia da Guanabara). Other recent examples of deforestation carried out by the Rio city government on the island include the extensive clearing in the Jequiá APARU [Environmental Protection and Urban Recovery Area], illegal deforestation in Jardim Guanabara (both in 2012), the death of around 15 imperial palms and the destruction of ALL the trees at Praia da Bandeira in 2009 (not to mention hundreds of other cases across the island and other parts of Rio de Janeiro. In just a few years, they are destroying a heritage built over generations!!! We, the residents of the island, cannot allow this to continue!!!” — Testimonial taken from social media

More Profit, Less Green

Over the past ten years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of trees completely removed with municipal authorization. During this period, in the South Zone alone, for example, 3,400 trees were cut down.

According to data from City Hall, Rio cut down 5,216 trees in 2021. By 2025, that number had more than doubled, reaching 13,130 trees removed from the city’s landscape.

Meanwhile, key initiatives and projects aimed at city reforestation have undergone a series of dismantling measures and rollbacks, such as the Reforestation Collective Action Program and the Parks and Gardens Foundation.

Alongside this accelerated devastation, the city has experienced a boom in new developments, including condominiums, shopping centers and other commercial establishments that have gradually been occupying green areas, even some that have long been set aside for protection and conservation.

Last year, a project aimed at revitalizing and integrating commercial activity in the Jardim de Alah park, developed by the Rio+Verde Consortium, received authorization to remove 130 mature trees, approximately 80 years old. In a social media post, residents denounced the environmental damage expected from the project, noting that the more than 95,000 m² area is home to Atlantic Rainforest along the waterfront.

 

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Um post compartilhado por Ana de Hollanda (@ana_de_hollanda)

According to the project’s developers, around 300 trees would be replanted to mitigate the impacts of the construction. However, effective oversight of how and where this environmental compensation would be carried out has not been taking place.

 

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Um post compartilhado por André Trigueiro (@andre_trigueiro)

Still in the South Zone, another case took place at the former Bennett School, located at Rua Marquês de Abrantes no. 61, in the Flamengo neighborhood. Construction had already begun on the site in the days leading up to New Year’s 2025-2026, but after residents reported the rapid removal of 71 trees from the property, a court intervened and ordered the developer’s activities to be halted.

The area where the trees stood had been protected since 2014 and housed an important ecosystem preserved since the Imperial period. It was completely decimated for the construction of two buildings housing 350 apartments.

 

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Um post compartilhado por Diário do Porto (@diariodoporto)

At the time of this publication, construction at the Bennett School remained suspended due to a lack of “technical elements demonstrating the impact of the construction on the area, including reports, permits, and studies,” as stated in the court decision.

In neighboring Botafogo, the construction of a development on Rua Arnaldo Quintela also led to the felling of a century-old tree.

 

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Um post compartilhado por BOTAFOGO EM DESTAQUE (@botafogo_em_destaque)

In other regions, such as Taquara and Greater Tijuca, the same pattern repeats itself. The former Clube da Light, located at Rua Barão do Bom Retiro, in Grajaú, known for housing the Light Athletic Association and serving as a traditional leisure space in the area, had its provisional heritage status revoked by then-mayor Eduardo Paes in October 2025. The construction was authorized to remove vegetation in December of the same year.

In September 2021, Tijuca residents came together in front of construction initiated by Opportunity Real Estate Investment Fund, which had been authorized to remove 340 trees from the site. The developer stated that, as compensation, it would plant 2,805 saplings; however, the construction removed native trees, displacing wild animals that had lived in the area for years.

In upscale areas of the Southwest Zone, such as Barra da Tijuca, similar cases have occurred. The Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPRJ) recommended the immediate suspension of environmental licenses and authorizations that had permitted the removal of approximately 900 trees in an area slated for the construction of a condominium near the Jacarepaguá Lagoon.

The development, led by CBR 217 Real Estate Developments, planned to build eight residential blocks within an Area of Relevant Environmental Interest (ARIA), considered strategic for maintaining the ecological balance of the Atlantic Rainforest biome. The construction was halted.

 

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Um post compartilhado por MPRJ (@mprj.oficial)

A document provided by the Municipal Secretariat for Urban and Economic Development (SMDUE) details a list of vegetation removed in Rio de Janeiro since 2004. The scale of the list is alarming: over 60 records of tree removals per page across over 80 pages.

It is worth noting that the entities currently responsible for pruning and tree removal services are COMLURB and Light, respectively: Rio’s municipal waste collection and electric utilities, one public and one private. Trees are being treated as an issue of urban cleaning or as obstacles to the electric grid, rather than as an essential environmental asset for collective well-being and, in the context of climate change, our very survival.

All of this runs counter to the guidelines set out in the Urban Tree Planting Master Plan (PDAU). Moreover, according to the Living Bay Movement, the situation may constitute an environmental crime under the Law of Nature (Federal Law No 9,605/1987). As explained by architect and urban planner Roberto Rocha:

“Why is this happening? Because of land value. When land value increases based solely on zoning parameters such as increases to permitted building heights, land is purchased to generate profit. And the trees in these areas end up disappearing. There is no space left. All that’s left are schools that are borderline obsolete or bankrupt and the grounds of old clubs. And what about the city’s 2024 Master Plan, which was approved precisely to enable the use of this territory? What we’re seeing is the tip of a system that ultimately impacts trees… It will reduce the city’s biodiversity and expand heat islands. We’re living a moment very similar to when Rio’s hillsides were entirely planted with coffee and we lost all our protective forests. [Afterwards,] we had to restore them, stop cutting down trees [reforesting by planting the Tijuca Forest], something I find very difficult given the political group currently in power and the dynamics within the Chamber of Deputies.”

Despite City Hall, Rio Organizes on Behalf of Trees

According to UniRio botanist Laura Jane, true revitalization of the city depends not only on planting compensatory saplings, but also on conducting serious studies to ensure the planting of appropriate species. The limited range of species currently being planted, often non-native, do not provide the same environmental benefits as those being lost:

“We need to preserve our native genetic stock here in Rio de Janeiro. We are bringing in [non-native species]… This is very serious in genetic terms… We cannot do anything we are discussing here with real rigor if we do not value our nurseries. We have problems with nurseries, with seeds… seed stocks are always of the same species… [Why] don’t we have information on flowering and fruiting in Rio? How are we going to plan to restore our vegetation? How are we going to manage it? We need to begin mapping and cataloging our trees and create a plan for future replacement [of saplings], so that we ensure continuity [of tree cover]. I honestly think this could also be planned neighborhood by neighborhood.”

Pedro Maia, member of the Urban Reforestation collective, also highlights the need for transparency mechanisms that are accessible to the public:

“We had [a topping case] on [Rua] Marquês de Abrantes. COMLURB was killing a tree and a resident showed up to question them and the workers got nervous. ‘Where’s the permit?’, the resident made a scene and filmed it, maybe even got a bit aggressive. We called COMLURB and they said, ‘That’s strange, because they were only supposed to look at a tree on the other side [of the street]. It had nothing to do with this one.’ So we found out that there was no permit whatsoever [authorizing the removal of that tree]. I asked the COMLURB manager and no one knew anything. This wasn’t a one-time incident. I spoke with an agent [and he said], ‘You can ask to see the permit, but you can’t take a photo.’ Why can’t we take a photo of the permit? We need transparency in this, you know? There’s a transparency law, they have to let us see documentation of what’s happening.”

In addition to all of this, in August 2023, an amendment to Article 235 of the Municipal Organic Law came into effect, allowing the concession of public green spaces, such as gardens, squares, parks, conservation units, and similar areas, to private entities. The amendment was authored by City Councilor Pedro Duarte, formerly of the Novo party and now a member of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the same party as former Mayor Eduardo Paes and his deputy, Eduardo Cavaliere, who took over as mayor on Friday, March 20, when Paes left to run for governor. This legislative initiative represents a setback in the conservation of the city’s green spaces.

Marcelo Lemos, a member of the Living Bay Movement, explained that although the struggle to restore the city’s green spaces might take a lot of work, it is both essential and urgent:

“Rio de Janeiro’s city government is clearly focused on the governor’s race and favoring real estate capital. We suffered a defeat in the debate over the Master Plan, where they managed to raise building height limits. That’s what led, for example in Grajaú, to the felling of those 55 trees. Until last year, my grandson used to go there to play soccer. And suddenly, [that place] was gone. The same thing happened in Andaraí, which had a 193-year-old garden. Today, there are no more hummingbirds or parakeets. The neighborhood lacks [nature]. It’s an ongoing struggle.

We’re establishing an Atlantic Rainforest nursery at the Mata Verde Bonita [Indigenous Guarani] Village in Maricá, but we think that isn’t enough, because our state cannot have an agency that only produces 9,000 saplings [per year]. What we need is not only to strengthen environmental licensing, but also to revitalize programs [such as the Reforestation Collective Action, among others], including those with community support, working with schools and local residents to carry out replanting. This way, you create jobs while also producing saplings and eliminating the excuse that saplings have to be brought in from outside the state. The issue of saplings is a strategic bottleneck. We’re the ones who have to carry out replanting with native species.”

 

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Um post compartilhado por Aldeia Mata Verde Bonita (@aldeia_mata_verde_bonita)

The meeting led to the creation of the Urban Tree Front and the development of a series of strategic measures to fight tree felling and the degradation of the city’s biome.

Measures Demanded by the Urban Tree Front to Fight Tree Felling:

1. 1. The immediate transfer of responsibility for urban tree management from COMLURB to the Parks and Gardens Foundation, revoking the decree that implemented this change, as it goes against the public interest and compromises the technical quality of urban tree management. This measure should be accompanied by the institutional rebuilding of the Parks and Gardens Foundation, including the reinstatement of a specialized technical staff (forestry engineers, agronomists, biologists, arboriculture technicians), the resumption of the environmental patrol, the implementation of continuous preventive management, and the adoption of proper pruning techniques, especially in areas with electrical wiring.
   2. Restructure and strengthen municipal environmental licensing, ensuring it returns to the Municipal Secretariat of Environment and Climate, in order to prevent conflicts of interest with urban development policies. Make Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Neighborhood Impact Assessments (EIV) mandatory for large-scale developments, preventing regulatory flexibility that favors developers and increases urban density without adequate environmental compensation.
   3. Establish full transparency in tree management and removal, requiring the publication, on the official city government website, of a list of trees scheduled for removal at least 20 days in advance, accompanied by technical reports signed by a qualified professional, detailed photographic records, substantiated technical justifications and the possibility for civil society to file administrative appeals.
   4. Implement a public monitoring and oversight app for urban tree cover, including georeferencing of trees, tracking their health, a reporting channel for irregular pruning and an open data platform, enabling ongoing public oversight and supporting evidence-based policymaking.
   5. Strengthen and fully implement the Urban Tree Planting Master Plan (PDAU), ensuring its budget is executed and creating accessible communication tools for the public, such as explanatory guides and georeferenced maps by neighborhood showing tree deficits and planting targets. Connect urban tree planting policy to the mitigation of urban heat islands and improvements in public health, facilitating engagement by youth and the wider community.
   6. Restore the municipal environmental budget, currently limited to about 0.5% of revenue, by establishing a progressive minimum percentage, ensuring transparency in its execution and enabling public oversight of resource allocation.
   7. Hold public service exams to rebuild the environmental technical workforce, including positions at the Parks and Gardens Foundation and other environmental agencies, ensuring administrative continuity, technical capacity and independence from political or economic pressures.
   8. Implement a municipal policy for sapling production and public nurseries, including vertical nurseries in dense urban areas, serving as genetic banks and seedbeds, prioritizing native species adapted to the local biome, creating green jobs and reducing costs with external procurement.
   9. Expand and structure environmental education in municipal schools, addressing the current training gap by creating practical spaces such as school gardens and nurseries, promoting partnerships with scientific institutions and ensuring that students learn about the species present in their own areas and understand the relationship between urban tree cover, climate and quality of life.
   10. Recognize and support community-led initiatives, such as the “Mão na Jaca” project, which has worked to protect jackfruit trees for over a decade by promoting fruit donations to vulnerable populations, managing seed dispersal to prevent uncontrolled spread and advocating for the species as an important component of the urban microclimate.
   11. Review policies on concessions and privatization of public spaces, particularly in light of proposals for the automatic renewal of concessions for up to 35 years, which in practice consolidate the privatization of parks and green areas. Require strict public oversight, effective contractual monitoring and broad public participation in decisions involving spaces such as Parque da Catacumba, Parque Garota de Ipanema and Buraco do Lume.
   12. Act in coordination with the Specialized Environmental Unit (GAEMA) of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, preparing technical dossiers on large-scale tree removals, donations of public land, contractual breaches in concessions and irregularities in tree management, with a view to initiating public civil actions whenever necessary.
   13. Integrate urban tree planting with city planning, addressing intensive development models that reduce open spaces and increase building density without green compensation, contributing to biodiversity loss and higher urban temperatures. Advocate revising construction parameters and protecting strategic areas.
   14. Hold electricity providers accountable for implementing underground wiring, preventing damage to tree roots and falls caused by conflicts between tree canopies and the electrical grid.
   15. Create permanent mechanisms for in-person public participation, monitoring the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly (ALERJ) and the City Council‘s agenda, organizing peaceful occupations of plenary sessions during environmentally sensitive votes and strengthening public demonstrations, including large-scale mobilization during Environment Week (around June 5).
   16. Launch a broad petition drive for a popular legislative initiative, aiming for 500,000 to 1 million supporters, using QR-code-enabled materials and online platforms to build a strong social base for the proposed legislative changes.

How to Join the Fight for Rio’s Trees

Sign and share the petition “STOP THE EXTERMINATION OF TREES IN RIO DE JANEIRO!” by the Living Bay Movement.

Make a video hugging your tree—on the sidewalk, in the street, or in your neighborhood, with family, neighbors, or friends—and tag @artemovimentovida. Don’t forget to mention the street and neighborhood where the tree is.

About the author: Amanda Baroni Lopes is a journalism student at Unicarioca and was part of the first Journalism Laboratory organized by Maré’s community newspaper Maré de Notícias. She is the author of the Anti-Harassment Guide on Breaking, a handbook that explains what is and isn’t harassment to the Hip Hop audience and provides guidance on what to do in these situations. Lopes is from Morro do Timbau and currently lives in Vila do João, both favelas within the larger Maré favela complex.

Support RioOnWatch’s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas by clicking here.

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Two years ago, classes at the Brant Horta Technological Municipal School (GET Brant Horta), located in Penha, a complex of favelas and surrounding neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, resumed in a special way: with a collective action in the school’s community garden.

This happened with the support of Vilson Luiz, a tour guide and environmental educator from Penha responsible for coordinating the project, and the Frente Penha collective. On March 5, students, teachers and environmental partners came together in a welcome ritual for new students. The event, a March activity on the Sustainable Favela Network’s (SFN)* collective calendar, also brought together environmental volunteers, such as Edvana do Nascimento, a member of Ação da Cidadania; Mara Lúcia Araújo, a member of the Positive Women collective; Franklin Ramos, an environmental educator; Eliana Ramos, an entrepreneur from Edixe Accessories; Lucia Helena Barbosa, from the Transvida Cooperative; and Maria José da Silva.

The Environment as an Educational Tool

As previously published by RioOnWatch, the Complexo da Penha region is one of the city’s main urban heat islands. Concerned about this reality, GET Brant Horta began raising students’ awareness by carrying out practical actions of care and preservation in the area surrounding the school, encouraging a sense of belonging.

During 2024 Environment Week, students and teachers organized a collective action in Ary Barroso Park to revitalize the previously underused site. Marjorie Guimarães, principal of GET Brant Horta, recalls:

“We even did some planting there [in Ary Barroso Park]. The idea of bringing the community to the school or the school going to the community was to improve students’ behavior, so they understand why they should not destroy or break things.”

However, the initiative was short-lived due to armed conflicts in the area. This motivated the administration and students to create their own on-campus community garden in May 2024—both to continue what had started in the park and to make productive use of unused spaces in the school.

Virgínia do Espírito Santo, geography teacher, shares how the project reaffirms the importance of collective, creative organizing between teachers, students, the community and projects within Complexo da Penha:

“We asked them [the students] what we could do with the empty space we had on the school grounds and they said: ‘We don’t have a green space here in the school.’ So we thought: ‘Why don’t we build a garden, then?’ And they agreed. We teachers made an estimate [of what we needed to start the garden] and purchased the materials. Then, Vilson got fertilizer from [waste utility] Comlurb to help improve the soil. Some people from the NGO Sowing and Harvesting Friendship came to help, and the Serra da Misericórdia Integration Center, (CEM) came too, bringing supplies, seedlings and seeds. And then we got started.”

 

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Um post compartilhado por GET Brant Horta (@brant_horta)

For principal Marjorie Guimarães, the garden has brought numerous benefits to daily life at the school, such as developing student leadership and improving performance:

“We used to have students, for example, who never spoke to anyone at school. One of them went from being introverted to extroverted and even came up with the irrigation system [for the garden]. He’s an example of how there’s an emotional aspect to all of this, because he has a stutter and had to explain things in his own way. It was good for both his health and emotional wellbeing. Others developed a sense of belonging, which encouraged them to stay longer at school and play games like ping-pong and volleyball. For us, that’s really great because it means they aren’t out on the streets. The more restless students also come together in the garden, and we use it as a bargaining chip: for the most absent or disengaged students, we tell them they have to come [to school to participate in the garden]. As a result, their behavior has improved a lot. I’m not saying it’s the [only] reason, but [the garden] helps, you know? We don’t reach all students, but we do pull some [away from disengagement] and from a disinterest in studying.”

With the support of the school and community, the students carried out a series of actions that benefited the entire school. Among these initiatives is an irrigation system for the garden that reuses water from air-conditioning units. The system stores the water in a small barrel capable of supplying all the seedlings.

There is a vertical garden growing small seedlings that are still germinating; they will later be transferred to the garden beds. The irrigation system works by means of pumps that continuously circulate water from the bottom up.

Two agroecological green roofs with light structures and quick-installation design were also added at the school; the netting and passion fruit leaves covering the garden came from the Green Roof Favela project. This structure has helped create a cooling point inside the school, crucial on hot days.

To further its socio-environmental mission, the school organized a fashion show in partnership with the Divines School and stylist Almir França, producing an entire collection from scraps of denim. The event was attended by actress Gi Fernandes, a former GET Brant Horta student. The students also received recognition from the Prince of Wales at the Earthshot Prize ceremony at Rio’s Museum of Tomorrow on November 5, 2025.

The Brant Horta community garden‘s social media shows content produced by the students. The school’s official profile also features various other educational materials created by the students. One of the most accessed posts on the school’s page is a tutorial in which children and teenagers teach how to make pouffes from plastic PET bottles.

The school is also competing for the 2025-2026 Shell NXplorers Global Inspiration Awards, an international award that recognizes schools that mobilize young people to change reality through science, creativity and care for their communities. It is nominated for the 2025 Best Sustainable Ideas category.

 

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Um post compartilhado por Renata Duarte (@duarteacher)

Seeds and Their Fruits in Self-Taught Learning

The garden has around 50 seedlings, distributed among edible and medicinal plants. In addition, it also an autonomous and integrated learning circuit among the different age groups served by the school, as explained by Vilson Luiz:

“There are very sensitive plants that die over the course of the year. It creates that feeling of, ‘Wow, we came here, planted them, and they died?’ Yes, but at the same time, others also grow. And it’s this movement of care that we need in order to do this work, this renewal. This helps because it’s the [the youth] who have to do the research. It’s not a place that has an owner. Everyone is the owner.”

A veteran of the community garden and a former GET Brant Horta student, Matheus Daniel, who is now in his first year at the Heitor Lira State High School, also in Penha, shares how participating in the garden contributed to his self-care:

“What impacted me the most was the care I learned to give to certain plants, many of which I didn’t know before. I also learned how to make remedies from many of these medicinal plants. I have asthmatic bronchitis and learned to use herbs as tea, which really helps my cough.”

Nathally Hyara, an 8th grade student at the school, says that the project she liked the most was building the garden’s irrigation system, as it challenged her to acquire new knowledge:

“All of the irrigation systems here were made by the students. I shared several ideas and we tried to find something more sustainable. All of the systems were made with materials we received or recycled. One is made from a fabric softener bottle and another from a hose. We just brought all the ideas together and developed everything. So it was built by all the students. Each one contributed an idea and we just put them into practice.”

Fabrício Miguel, also an 8th grader, began participating in the garden’s activities more recently and shared the benefits of this contact with nature:

“It’s a form of de-stressing. I have now started a garden at home, where I planted an onion. I put it in the middle of some sand, all neat and tidy, and it’s already growing. At home, we also have many types of plants because my grandma likes them too.”

A Garden of History and Memory

Victor Eckhart, a former GET Brant Horta student, shared that, beyond what his peers mentioned, the project also involves a reconnection with ancestral knowledge:

“We learned a lot about ancestral knowledge, [for example,] that boldo is one of the oldest plants we have here. There’s a garden bed that is entirely ancestral. Not only Brazil’s ancestral knowledge, but ours too, from our grandparents—my grandma, for example, still strongly recommends I drink boldo for a stomachache.”

Vilson Luiz explains that, alongside the work in the garden and the school’s curriculum subjects, the appreciation of local history also takes a central role in this process:

“We tell the history of this area, starting with its original inhabitants, so the children understand the real story of the place they belong to and can help preserve it.”

The Fight to Revitalize the Ary Barroso Park

Ary Barroso Park suffers from neglect by public authorities. At 60 years old, it currently has broken fences, overgrown vegetation, dry ponds and a lot of stagnant rainwater, which increases the number of mosquitoes and the risk of dengue, chikungunya, Zika and other diseases in the area.

This prompted a public civil action by the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPRJ), denouncing the situation and demanding solutions. Finally, on March 9, 2026, the Court ordered urgent measures from Rio’s City Hall and the State of Rio de Janeiro to be implemented within a maximum of 60 days.

Actions ordered by the Court include: maintenance of vegetation by the municipal waste collection utility Comlurb, including trees at risk of falling; halting unauthorized construction in the protected area; demolition of illegal structures on the site; and development of a restoration and revitalization plan for the park, covering its internal roads, gardens, ponds, fences and all degraded infrastructure.

In response to this situation, the restoration of Ary Barroso Park has also been taken up by the students, who have even launched a campaign to reactivate the site. According to Virgínia do Espírito Santo, a geography teacher at GET Brant Horta:

“We asked the students what part of the neighborhood made them think of nature and they came up with the Ary Barroso Park… They made Instagram videos asking for the park’s revitalization and showing the broken playground equipment. We’ve always asked for the community’s help, because we didn’t want this [environmental education] to stay only within the school. We want the students to replicate it in the favela and in the neighborhood. To take it to other institutions. For example, they are now working with Arena Dicró and with Ana Santos [from CEM] on the Agroflorestinha project, replicating the work they do at our school. Our students go there on Saturdays on their own and teach other children. If we have an unused space, we plant a tree or create a garden. We need to remember that this neighborhood is an intense urban heat island and that the only way to improve it is by adding greenery, because the city won’t come to plant. The park has been completely neglected.”

Planting New Futures

Despite setbacks, hope always finds a space to flourish. According to Vilson Luiz, turning the city block where the school is located from concrete into a green space will be the next step in this movement:

“We have plans to open some gaps in the sidewalk, break it up, and plant trees around the school block. We’ll plant and start taking care of it. We’ll turn the school into a living laboratory.”

Victor Eckhart, on the other hand, wants to implement his knowledge at his new school, where he hopes to share it with other students:

“This [GET Brant Horta] is where I learned everything about planting and got to know the plants. Now, I have a small garden at home with peppers and sunflowers. I also have a papaya tree that’s grown quite big—I got it from here. I want to try and create a planting project at my new school, Heitor Lira, to help kids understand what I learned here. I want to pass this knowledge on to the next generation.”

View the Full Album of the GET Brant Horta Garden Collective Action in Penha:

*The Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) and RioOnWatch are both initiatives realized by not-for-profit organization Catalytic Communities (CatComm).

About the author: Amanda Baroni Lopes holds a degree in Journalism from Unicarioca and was part of the first Journalism Laboratory organized by the Maré community newspaper Maré de Notícias. She is the author of the Anti-Harassment Guide in Breaking, a handbook that explains what is and isn’t harassment to the Hip Hop audience and provides guidance on what to do in these situations. Lopes is from Morro do Timbau, a favela within the larger Maré favela complex.

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Concerned with the felling of trees across the Taquara neighborhood, in Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone, not far from where the 2016 Olympics took place, community journalist Magnun Alves shared an account on social media about the merciless wave of tree “pruning” that has been devastating the region over the past two years, offering a heartbreaking local account that reinforces recent reporting on RioOnWatch, such as the must-read “Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes Sells Off Iconic Green Spaces” published earlier this month.

Alves is a contributor to his neighborhood newspaper Jornal Abaixo Assinado Jacarepaguá (JAAJ) and documents a range of issues related to everyday life in the region, including predatory pruning, which has been linked to the construction of new real estate developments, commercial establishments and reckless urbanization.

Shade Is Disappearing: Centuries-Old Trees Decimated

Jacarepaguá has slowly been losing its bucolic feel. Lately, what has been moving fastest is the felling of mature trees—the very ones that for years gave shade, cool air and beauty to our streets.

The removal of a tree on Rua Alberto Soares Sampaio, in Taquara, was already completed when I arrived. Caught in the act, I asked [those responsible] if I could see the service order. Politely, they showed me a permit. During the conversation, the usual explanation came up: “For each tree cut down, City Hall plants ten or twenty more.”

The felled tree had been a long-time shelter for birds and an important source of shade in the region. The ground was evidently destroyed, showing that considerable effort was made to remove it.

But an entire ecosystem is lost along with a tree of this size: various birds, marmosets and other forms of life that depended on it. So, the question remains: does our neighborhood really not need trees?

Jacarepaguá already suffers from flooding, because much of the neighborhood is covered by concrete. At other times, we face extreme heat, exacerbated by the lack of green areas. Planting trees in remote areas or on hillsides where wildfires have occurred might even be understandable, but what we are seeing happen is something else: sidewalks that once had trees are being turned into parking areas. And this is not happening only in Jacarepaguá.

More and more, Rio de Janeiro is seeing its mature trees disappear while new developments emerge. A pretty photo of planting a sapling is pointless in a news report or on social media. Anyone who experiences this city knows the difference between a sapling and a tree that took decades to grow.

Other incidents are unfolding throughout the neighborhood. On Avenida dos Mananciais 748, where centuries-old trees, already pruned and starting to regrow, were removed—their trunks were cut up and removed in the night. A short distance away, on this same avenue at number 128, a tree was injected with poison. The method is used to desiccate roots, killing them from the inside out. Another spot, on Estrada do Tindiba at number 2,620, shows where a tree once stood, its soil now cemented over.

These trees were so robust, with roots so deep, that their removal took more than a night’s work. Following the extraction, what was once a small ecosystem has become nothing but compact earth. Cars began to occupy the sidewalks, turning them into parking spots, infringing on the universal right to come and go, especially at night, on soccer game days and during events at other establishments in the area.

The question remains for us all: what kind of city do we want to leave for the years to come?

In addition to the felling, trees also suffer from poorly executed pruning, when they are cut only on one side. This makes them unstable and increases the risk of falling during major storms—as happened in November 2025.

A city that was once shade and life is now haunted by concrete and heat. Urban landscaping is no longer planned inclusively and often seems to serve developments more than people.

About the author: Magnun Alves is a writer and grassroots communicator. He is author of the children’s book “The Adventures of Arthur in His Mom’s Belly.” He is also mediator of the Encanto do Sertão Carioca collective and a contributor to the newspaper Jornal Abaixo Assinado, reporting on Rio de Janeiro’s West Zone.

 

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This article is part of a series created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the Digital Brazil Project on environmental justice in the favelas through RioOnWatch.

This Women’s Month, following Rio de Janeiro’s 2026 carnival, RioOnWatch visited Mesquita, a city in Greater Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, to learn about the Carolinas of Jacutinga project, created in honor of Carolina Maria de Jesus. De Jesus, one of the greatest authors in Brazilian history, was the inspiration behind one of Rio’s premier samba schools, Unidos da Tijuca’s 2026 carnival parade. Like the women of Jacutinga, she was a waste picker. Today, these residents transform their neighborhood’s history through a cooperative focused on recycling, art, environmental education and memory.

‘I Am Carolina Maria de Jesus: The One Who Overcame Hunger and Rewrote Brazil’

Carolina Maria de Jesus’ life journey echoes in the streets of Mesquita, in the Baixada Fluminense. The writer who transformed her lived experience amid hardship in the Canindé favela, on the banks of the Tietê River, in São Paulo, into a landmark of world literature with Child of the Dark in 1960, today inspires the project Carolinas of Jacutinga, which not only honors the writer’s name but also brings her essence to life by organizing women waste pickers into a network of solidarity economy, leadership and cooperative work.

Since 2024, a partnership with Petrobras allowed for the inauguration of a Socio-Environmental Memory Center open to the public, located at the cooperative’s headquarters. Beyond their home territory, the Carolinas are active in four other municipalities in the Baixada Fluminense: Belford Roxo, Nova Iguaçu, Nilópolis and São João de Meriti. Today, in Jacutinga, recyclable materials serve as a tool of emancipation, enabling women to break free from situations of vulnerability while taking a leading role in managing solid waste in Greater Rio.

The cooperative’s story begins with an act of solidarity. In 1992, during a mass at Nossa Senhora do Carmo Church, in Mesquita, Hada Rúbia Silva, today the cooperative’s director, accepted a challenge posed by the priest: to organize the distribution of donated vegetables to women facing extreme vulnerability. What was meant to be a one-time community task became the seed of Coopcarmo, as the Mesquita Cooperative for Employment and Waste Sorting is known, forming the structural foundation of the project inspired by Carolina Maria de Jesus years later.

“Nowadays, the situation here in Jacutinga has changed a lot. But back then, life was really hard. Women didn’t live long. It was horrifying!” — Hada Rúbia Silva

The shift from charity to a desire to foster autonomy marks a pivotal chapter in the history of Coopcarmo. In the 1990s, life in Jacutinga was precarious, with women living along the edges of drainage channels and relying on church services to plead for basic necessities, such as cooking gas, rent or a meal. Silva recalls that for years, this support network was sustained by Father Nino Miraldi, an Italian so dedicated to the vulnerable that he is fondly remembered as Jacutinga’s “father of the poor,” and lends his name to the local high school (CIEP). He founded several community centers and promoted important initiatives, such as the “Kilo Campaign,” which collected food for those in need.

With the passing of Father Miraldi, the social work faced a hiatus, later filled by the arrival of another Catholic priest, Father Obertal Xavier. The new priest, knowledgeable about the dynamics of the Baixada Fluminense, brought with him a philosophy of transformation. Under this new direction, Hada Rúbia Silva, who already organized the distribution of vegetables and the community soup delivered in the parish’s old VW bus, took on an increasingly prominent role in transforming charity into a solidarity economy project. However, the idea was not well received at first.

“The reaction was not at all good. At the meeting, when he brought up the possibility of doing this work with garbage, most of the women said, ‘Oh no, that’s not feasible. That’s not going to work. How are you going to put those women who are living in extreme poverty to collect and sell garbage? That’s not going to work.’” — Hada Rúbia Silva

The concept of recycling was initially foreign to the women of the community. They came around not because of a focus on preserving the planet, but on fighting the immediate hunger and unemployment that plagued single mothers and marginalized families in Jacutinga.

‘Developing Actions in Art, Environmental Education and Memory’

Without infrastructure or technical knowledge, the cooperative had to reinvent itself. The women realized that Coopcarmo’s operational capacity lacked almost everything: qualified personnel to manage recyclable materials, facilities equipped with proper tools, standardized storage and the ability to turn recyclables into financial gain. To address this, Father Obertal traveled to Germany and Belgium, where he connected with NGOs specializing in the creation, organization and training of recycling and agroecology initiatives in the Global South. A technical team traveled to Mesquita, and through an immersion that lasted several weeks, the group of women began their journey as part of the solidarity economy.

In 2010, the cooperative was officially registered, undergoing necessary bureaucratic adjustments, such as securing labor guarantees for its members, such as opening bank accounts and registering with the Brazilian social security system.

In addition, a partnership with Mesquita City Hall helped clarify technical specifications and enabled the cooperative to acquire, in 2011, a hydraulic press and its own truck to assist in collecting and transporting recyclable materials. These assets were obtained through a call for proposals issued by the National Health Foundation (Funasa), which invested in social inclusion through sanitation and environmental health initiatives in partnership with civil society organizations.

Some time later, the group learned about an exhibition dedicated to their inspiration, author Carolina Maria de Jesus. They decided to take the Dutra Highway on a seven-hour journey to the Moreira Salles Institute (IMS) on Avenida Paulista in São Paulo.

“We simply went,” recalls environmental educator Fabiana Oliveira, one of the project’s volunteers. With R$5,000 (~US$950) obtained through a Sebrae grant and donated tickets, they arrived in São Paulo. At the meeting with the museum’s educators, a surprise: the women from the Baixada knew everything about Carolina Maria de Jesus.

The connection with the writer who made a living from garbage and transformed her story into literature was immediate and profound. From that encounter emerged a partnership with the IMS and a new identity. The Carolinas were no longer simply waste pickers—they became women reinventing themselves through three pillars: art, environmental education and memory.

Today, in addition to the Memory Center, the hydraulic press and the warehouse, the cooperative’s headquarters house Repapel, an innovative handmade paper factory. One of its main distinctions is its partnership with the neighboring city of Nova Iguaçu, which does not have its own cooperative and sends its recyclable materials to Jacutinga—approximately 20 tons per month.

 

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Um post compartilhado por As Carolinas de Jacutinga (@ascarolinasdejacutinga)

Among the materials received, one stands out for its technological innovation: cigarette butts. Considered highly polluting due to nicotine and heavy metals, cigarette butts can take up to five years to decompose. However, through a technology developed by the University of Brasília (UnB), those collected in Nova Iguaçu undergo a decontamination process and return to the cooperative as pure cellulose pulp.

“This here is the decontaminated cigarette filter,” says Fabiana Oliveira, showing the raw material that now goes into handmade notebooks. “The project has already produced over 1,000 units, which have been refined since 2019. What once had ordinary cardboard covers now has the texture and value of handmade paper, imbued with history,” explains the educator.

Recently, during a workshop at the Sustainable Favela Festival, the artisans discovered the potential of agave, an invasive plant with resistant fibers similar to sisal. The plan now is to replace the plastic in the notebook bindings with fibers from the plant, completing the cycle of a 100% eco-friendly product. “The idea is to make these notebooks increasingly sustainable and improve their appearance,” explains Oliveira.

Even with Legalization, Challenges Remain

Since then, there have been many successive achievements: the establishment of a handmade paper production unit using recycled materials, collage training activities, painting, bookbinding, mosaic and design using recyclable materials; interactive meetups addressing recycling, conscious consumption and the favela as an educational space; workshops on memory and writing; as well as sharing and self-care circles, including sessions focused on emotional well-being, a sense of belonging and collective strengthening through networks.

However, nothing comes easily for the women in Carolinas of Jacutinga. Even while surviving with dignity and overcoming the most severe economic hardships, their lives remain marked by limitations.

At 60, Márcia Rodrigues Conceição, a resident of Nova Iguaçu, says her journey with the cooperative began 18 years ago, during a period of uncertainty. Unemployed and coming from a difficult experience as a cleaning lady in a building complex—where she faced long commutes and exposure to violence—she found a new life through recycling.

Even though she is illiterate and says that, in the beginning, she felt “a bit lost,” Conceição did not back down. Under the care of Hada Rúbia, whom Conceição describes as “a mother with a huge heart,” she completed her trial period and never left.

For Conceição, the cooperative provided more than just a salary: it provided socioeconomic inclusion. Through this work, she was able to open her first bank account and get her first debit card. “I had nothing,” she recalled. Not even the devastating floods that hit the region in 2023 and took nearly all her belongings could discourage her. With the support of government benefits and her ongoing work in recycling, she continues to rebuild her life, brick by brick, in the same place near the Japeri train line. The promotion to production director came as an exciting surprise. Conceição said that she found out about it during a meeting, when her name was announced: “I started crying right there; it’s something you never expect.”

Today, she leads a team of ten people. Her daily routine involves ensuring the organization of the warehouse, sorting materials arriving from neighborhoods such as Austin, also in Nova Iguaçu, and overseeing the use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Despite the responsibility, she avoids the stereotype of a “strict boss.” Márcia Conceição prefers dialogue and a relaxed approach: “I take everything in stride; I joke more than I scold,” she said.

‘I’d Eat If There Were Anything Left’

With a gaze that reflects the experience of someone who witnessed the project’s beginnings, at 69, Sônia Regina Narciso celebrates 25 years of dedication to sorting recyclable materials. Yet, beyond separating PET bottles and paper, Narciso’s journey is a story of fighting hunger and relentlessly pursuing her children’s dignity.

Before joining the cooperative, Narciso’s reality was marked by the uncertainty of odd jobs. Raising four children on her own, she split her time between exhausting cleaning jobs that barely paid R$300 (~US$55) per month, which did not even cover the basics. Memories of that period are harsh. She recalls prioritizing her children’s meals over her own. “The food here is just for you,” she told them, hiding her own hunger. In a moment of desperation, when she asked a local priest for help buying a gas cylinder, she received the advice that would change her life: “Go see Hada; she’ll get you a job.”

Joining the cooperative was not immediate. Narciso had to persist until she secured her place. When she finally joined, the change was dramatic: her work in recycling allowed her to leave the wooden shack where she lived and build her own home. “Where there used to be a tile roof, now there’s a concrete slab!” she says proudly.

Born in São João de Meriti, another city in the Baixada Fluminense, but living in Mesquita since the age of 11, Narciso now faces a new kind of pressure: the overprotectiveness of her children, who are now adults with established careers, asking their mother to stop working. They worry about the physical strain, a natural consequence of working with recyclable materials.

Narciso, however, resists. For her, the recycling warehouse is more than just a job: it is a place where she feels useful and engaged. “It’s better than staying home,” she says, determined to continue working until official retirement.

By transforming the “garbage room” into a “living room”—in the words of Carolina Maria de Jesus—the Carolinas of Jacutinga “changed their story” and “drew strength from the verses to prevail,” as sung by the Unidos da Tijuca samba school in 2026.

Like Carolina Maria de Jesus, these women use recyclable materials to achieve autonomy and do far more than just clean cities: they rebuild life in their communities. They have rewritten their dignity through environmental awareness, economic independence and women’s empowerment.

Watch the 2026 Unidos da Tijuca samba school parade and learn more about Carolina Maria de Jesus here:

About the author: Fabio Leon is a journalist, human rights activist, and media advisor with Fórum Grita Baixada. 

Support RioOnWatch’s tireless, critical and cutting-edge hyperlocal journalism, online community organizing meetings, and direct support to favelas by clicking here.

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The Favela Climate Memory exhibition, organized by eleven museums that are part of the Sustainable Favela Network (SFN)*, has been on display since January and will continue until March 31 at the Palacete Princesa Isabel, which also houses the headquarters of the Historic Orientation and Research Nucleus of Santa Cruz (NOPH). NOPH was the organizer of the exhibition at the cultural center in Santa Cruz, in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro.

On March 3, students and teachers from the Princesa Isabel Municipal School visited the exhibition and were able to learn more about the process of putting it together. Bruno Almeida, coordinator of NOPH, described for the group how the exhibition proposal came about:

“We thought up the Favela Climate Memory project, which has now visited ten favelas across the city of Rio de Janeiro. One of those was Antares [in Santa Cruz]. We set up a discussion circle to better understand the process of climate change and what the community remembers about its effects. We also learned about the solutions used within the communities.”

While students learned about the idea behind the exhibition, Santa Cruz was still experiencing the after-effects of the heavy rains that hit the West Zone and the Greater Rio area in February and March 2026. On February 26, the region was one of the most severely affected, and a few days later, on March 1, the scene repeated itself. The impacts were primarily felt in Antares, where the Cação Vermelho River overflowed. Many residents lost furniture and personal items as their homes were flooded.

 

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Visitors could see Antares represented in the Favela Climate Memory exhibition’s timeline, made up of 60 panels documenting historic moments drawn from discussion circles in ten different favelas. One of the panels shows the forced resettlement process that led to the creation of Antares, resulting from the impact of rains in other regions of the city in 1966:

“Many of those left without homes due to the rains in January, called ‘flagelados’ [disaster victims], came from favelas all over the city and the Baixada Fluminense and were taken to the City of God housing complex. Others were taken even further away, to Paciência, where Antares is.” — Panel from 1966 on the Favela Climate Memory Timeline

Further along the timeline, the floods of February 2026 recalled a recent, troubling panel from 2019:

“The city of Rio de Janeiro was hit by heavy rains on April 8 and 9, 2019, the heaviest rainfall in 22 years. The city government declared a state of emergency. There were ten fatalities across the city, among them Reginaldo Exidro da Silva, who drowned in Antares. The force of the water brought down the iron structure of the famous Ponte Amarela in Antares. Over 1,000 houses were flooded and many residents had to remain on their rooftops under heavy rain throughout the night, losing documents, furniture, electronics, clothes and provisions.” — Panel from 2019 on the Favela Climate Memory Timeline

The Municipal Secretariat of Social Assistance received residents affected by the rains at the Palacete Princesa Isabel to register them and provide emergency aid and sleeping mats. Unfortunately, the Favela Climate Memory exhibition recorded new testimonials and new climate memories from the favelas in real time.

Marlene Ayres Neto, a resident of Antares, was one of those affected by the recent flood. She joined the students’ discussion circle, taking place outside, and shared her story with the group.

The climate memory represented on the banners and timeline proved to be ongoing, with a live account of a recent climate memory from just a few days earlier:

“I live on Avenida Antares and I am shaking! I’m still in a state of shock. The Cação Vermelho River overflowed where two other rivers meet and we were pulled out by firefighters.

We urgently need to raise awareness in favelas about trash disposal, about being more careful with sewage channels, you know? Because, every day, every year that goes by, climate change is only getting worse. Forgive me, I’m still in shock—I never thought I’d live through something like this in my life. It simply [turned] into a sea. The firefighter who came to rescue us helped us get out of there. I’m not even going back, because it will just keep rising higher each year… I’ve lived there for 18 years. This is the second flood I’ve experienced. You, the youth, are our hope. Our hope is that you will become more aware, not throw trash [just anywhere], and be very careful with anything going into the rivers so they don’t get blocked. Start taking care of our nature for a better future. You are our hope—the hope for your children, the hope for your grandchildren.”

Bruno Almeida added to Marlene’s remarks, stating how difficult it is to lose all of your belongings in a flood, as well as stressing the urgency of public policies to prevent the population from suffering so frequently from the impacts of the floods:

“It’s very sad. We see the images, but when we speak to the person, it’s hard to react. What can you say to them? What can we offer in a situation like this? Only support. And right now, what we did at the exhibition was just that: listen… These are issues that aren’t just [limited to] floods, to the water rising and falling a little—it’s losing all your possessions, and every time [this happens], people have to rebuild their homes from scratch. It’s almost like a war, you know? Except that ours could be prevented through public policy.”

After the discussion circle, the students, still reeling from this account, returned to the exhibition. History teacher Milena Williston spoke about the experience:

“I thought the exhibition was really interesting. I’d never seen anything like what I saw here today. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not, given what’s happening right now. We see things from the past, the residents’ accounts, the way the project is organized—I thought that was really great. And they [the students] are really excited about the photos. I think it’s so important for them to see that the population, them included, needs to understand that people don’t just suffer from a lack of public policy. People need to take care of what they have. Because we see that flooding happens not just due to a lack of public policy, but also—as that lady asked [everyone here]—that we don’t throw trash [into the rivers] and take care of them.”

Tiago Oliveira, a 15-year-old student, noted that a lack of understanding of these memories can lead to problems from the past being repeated:

“I thought the exhibition was very interesting! The way that Bruno himself specifically talked about how all the discussion circles worked and how people forget about these memories and how [extreme climate] events that happened a long time ago, that are forgotten, end up happening again… As if it keeps happening over and over again.”

The Favela Climate Memory exhibition is on display at the Palacete Princesa Isabel, inside the Santa Cruz Municipal Cultural Center Doutor Antônio Nicolau Jorge, located on Rua das Palmeiras Imperiais, s/n. The exhibition is open Tuesday to Saturday, from 10am to 3pm, through March 31. Entrance is free.

Click Here to View the Full Album of the Favela Climate Memory Exhibition in Santa Cruz:

*The Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) and RioOnWatch are both initiatives of not-for-profit organization Catalytic Communities (CatComm). The ‘Favela Climate Memory’ exhibition brings together 1,145 testimonials from 382 residents of ten favelas across Rio de Janeiro, collected and analyzed over three years, produced through a collective oral history project. The exhibition was developed by eleven museums and favela memory collectives that are members of the SFN: the Maré Museum (Complexo da Maré favelas), the Sankofa Museum (Rocinha favela), the Historic Orientation and Research Nucleus of Santa Cruz (organizer of the Antares climate memory circle), the Favela Museum (Pavão-Pavãozinho/Cantagalo favelas), the Vidigal Memories Nucleus (Vidigal favela), Alfazendo (City of God favela), the Serra da Misericórdia Integration Center (Complexo da Penha favelas), the Horto Museum (Horto favela), Fala Akari (Acari favela), Conexões Periféricas (Rio das Pedras favela), and the Evictions Museum (Vila Autódromo favela). 

About the author: Bárbara Dias was born and raised in Bangu, in Rio’s West Zone. She has a degree in Biological Sciences, a master’s in Environmental Education, and has been a public school teacher since 2006. She is a photojournalist and also works with documentary photography. She is a popular communicator for Núcleo Piratininga de Comunicação (NPC) and co-founder of Coletivo Fotoguerrilha.

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For the original article by André Ilha, published in O Eco on March 9, click here.

Upon taking office for his fourth term as Rio de Janeiro’s mayor [in January 2025], Eduardo Paes announced a team that would bring a “shock of capitalism” to the city. Now, as he prepares to step down to run for state governor, we know he was not bluffing.

And we could not have imagined that his Secretary of the Environment and Climate, Tainá de Paula, appointed by the Workers’ Party (PT), would become complicit in an ultraliberal project designed to help construction companies and other business interests advance into the city’s public green spaces, both inside and outside conservation units, for their own benefit. All of this has unfolded under the pretext of “modernization” or “revitalization” of areas deliberately left neglected, making it easier to convince the unwary of the supposed inefficiency of public authorities—an inefficiency that, the narrative claims, only the private sector’s supposedly redemptive competence could remedy.

Rio as One Huge, Endless Party

There is certainly nothing new about construction companies working behind the scenes in a bid to occupy green areas with new building projects. Neither is it surprising that businesspeople from a wide range of sectors offer “gifts” in the form of large-scale projects that undermine these areas’ original purpose as spaces for biodiversity preservation, contemplation of nature and refuge from the tensions of big-city life, as envisioned by John Muir, the creator of the concept of national parks. But what is happening in Rio de Janeiro today is on an entirely different scale—enough to leave even the most battle-hardened environmental defenders perplexed by the sheer number of simultaneous abuses on display.

The goal seems to be to turn all of Rio de Janeiro into one giant, nonstop party, with celebrations, concerts, events, rides and installations everywhere, all to benefit the businesses of a favored few. This policy stands in stark contrast to what is happening in major cities such as Berlin, Madrid and Seoul, to name just a few, which are renaturalizing areas once transformed by human intervention. In practice, though not in its empty rhetoric, it ignores the fact that Rio de Janeiro is a city whose greatest charm, and one of its main economic assets, as the Secretary herself acknowledges, is precisely its exuberant nature. Eduardo Paes has not only allowed, but actively encouraged, the massive occupation of the city’s remaining open spaces and parts of Rio’s beaches by buildings, installations and countless events, thereby simultaneously undermining the landscape, biodiversity and residents’ quality of life in pursuit of a frantic influx of visitors. As a result, the mayor reaps strong economic indicators, but fails in his basic duty to safeguard residents’ well-being, including emotionally.

In fact, numerous studies have shown the importance of green spaces, including urban ones, for people’s physical and mental health. A March 2025 article in Jornal da USP noted that contact with greenery led to a “reduction in anxiety, stress and irritability, while improvements in cardiovascular health stood out among the physiological effects. Another aspect frequently mentioned in the studies were the restorative effects that green spaces can provide, such as helping people recover from mental fatigue and improving mood.”

This assault on residents’ space and tranquility reaches its peak in Copacabana. The beach, already overrun by the excesses of the kiosks and countless volleyball nets, goalposts, beach vendors and the like, has now effectively lost a large stretch of sand to a gigantic stage and its support area, used for increasingly frequent mega concerts. The sidewalks, already partly occupied by the palisade of apartment building railings, have now also been taken over by tables, chairs, merchandise and signs, like an enormous open-air bazaar, while in the narrow strip that remains, pedestrians must dodge bicycles and now motorcycles as well, in a state of total traffic disorder. At night, during what should be residents’ time to rest, the din from bars and restaurants continues into the early hours of the morning and is the leading complaint reported to the city’s hotline.

While all this buzz may be great fun for those who come to spend a few days in Rio and for those who profit from visitors, it is deeply draining for those who actually live in the city. Leaving home has become an ordeal, an exhausting exercise in survival, and little remains of the world-famous, tree-lined, tranquil Rio de Janeiro. This may help explain why 75% of Rio residents would move away if they could, according to a February 2025 survey by the Instituto Cidades Sustentáveis. In 2011, that figure was just 27%.

The Dismantling of the City’s Environmental Structure

The onslaught against Rio’s greenery began with the weakening of the Municipal Secretariat of Environment and Climate (SMAC), created by the late Alfredo Sirkis in 1994, and, by extension, the Parks and Gardens Foundation. Both institutions now have drastically reduced and demoralized permanent staff. The city has not held a civil service entrance exam in many years and the few, insufficient hires have been made through political appointments, meaning they are, on average, less likely to displease their superiors.

Under Eduardo Paes 3.0 and 4.0, SMAC underwent numerous structural changes that undermined its proper management, and in early 2021 suffered the biggest blow of all: environmental licensing was stripped from the agency and transferred to the Secretariat for Economic Development, Innovation and Simplification (SMDEIS, now SMDU), just as urban licensing had been removed from the Secretariat of Urbanism and sent to the same destination. Even though some technical staff from both agencies were transferred along with the responsibility, license applications are now reviewed in an entirely pro-business environment—the electric chair where the promised “shock of capitalism” is administered. The clearest proof of how misguided the measure was is the large number of dubious licenses that have been approved, some not merely questionable but blatantly irregular, and several already challenged in court.

SMAC’s weakening is not merely quantitative, but also qualitative. Although SMAC still has excellent technical staff, holdovers from better times, they are often ignored, and crucial decisions are made behind closed doors in the secretary’s office by people with no real knowledge of the matters at hand. One striking example was Tainá de Paula’s January 2024 announcement that she would combat the effects of climate change on the city by reforesting its hillsides with seeds dropped by French drones. Anyone with any understanding of how difficult it is to reforest steep slopes overrun by Guinea grass and other invasive grasses knows what a sham this was. Had the secretary’s proposal actually been put into practice, it would have amounted to a “seedicide,” but since, as expected, not a single tree sprouted from the publicity stunt, it at least earned her favorable media coverage and good Instagram posts.

Tainá de Paula’s tenure at SMAC was marked by complete neglect of the agency’s real problems, especially those related to the remarkable network of conservation units under its stewardship. It was also defined by incessant self-promotion on social media, where she blocked critics and deleted their posts. A lack of transparency regarding the Secretariat’s actions, and above all its omissions, was another hallmark. She was, of course, fully aligned with the mayor’s projects, even when they entailed large-scale tree removals, disregard for protected heritage sites, damage to conservation units, and the gutting of the city’s environmental protection structures.

The chemistry between the mayor and the secretary is clearly illustrated by her shift in position regarding a proposed amendment to the City Charter introduced by a neoliberal city council member that would allow Rio’s parks and squares to be granted as concessions or otherwise transferred to private interests.

Initially, when the bill’s author was a member of the NOVO Party, the Secretary, then a city council member herself, released a video attacking the initiative, saying she would vote against it and calling on viewers to attend the City Council hearing to pressure lawmakers to do the same. Once she joined the administration, and the neoliberal council member switched to the mayor’s party (PSD), she fell silent. She even issued her Secretariat’s “no objection,” ensuring the proposal could move forward with the full backing of the municipal executive.

The celebrated, award-winning Mutirão Reflorestamento project, which celebrates 40 years of success in 2026 [by training and hiring favela-based environmental agents who reforest surrounding hillsides], survived rumors that it would be shut down—although it has been drastically scaled back. The Environmental Patrol, the city’s only municipal channel for cracking down on environmental violations, has remained completely paralyzed for about six months at the time of writing—a victim of administrative incompetence. The Parks and Gardens Foundation, once a model institution and a training ground for skilled professionals, has been completely hollowed out—responsibilities for pruning and tree removal have been transferred to Comlurb, the municipal waste collection utility. The result has been a systematic mutilation of the city’s trees—in which Light (the local electricity provider) has also enthusiastically participated—leaving the city drier, hotter and grayer.

Although she had given up a typical function of her own office, Tainá de Paula then chose to encroach on Comlurb’s responsibilities with the unbelievable “Drain Guardians” project, hiring people from favelas among her constituents to clean the city’s drains and storm sewers. She spent around R$1.5 million (~US$288,000) in compensatory funds on the initiative, money that would have been better used in the city’s conservation units. Since this is an activity that falls squarely within Comlurb’s responsibilities, which it performs efficiently in many respects, it is fair to ask why these workers were hired in the first place. As for the joke about the destination of those funds, the project’s name practically supplied the punchline.

Parques Cariocas – “Give It All Away!”

The city government’s troubling Parques Cariocas program, which proposes concessions for municipal urban parks and municipal natural parks (PNMs), was so riddled with problems from the outset that it remains on hold to this day, despite having been launched in April 2024. It is managed not by SMAC, but by the Carioca Partnerships and Investments Company (CCPAR), with support from the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES). The program covers 26 parks and squares divided into lots. No one is opposed to the concession of services in these spaces, especially those supporting visitation, but there is a deliberate conflation between urban parks, where a greater presence of facilities aimed at serving the broader public is acceptable, and strictly protected conservation units, whose primary purpose is to preserve ecosystems, fauna and flora. Visitation is welcome—but on nature’s terms, with as little human intervention as possible.

As proof of the ignorance of those involved, SMAC released an initial draft of the terms of reference for the concession of Bosque da Barra Park and Chico Mendes Municipal Natural Park that identified images of children climbing trees and observing wildlife as “situations that may compromise visitor safety.” Yet these are precisely the kinds of activities one would hope to find in conservation units in the park category, where very little else is needed to accommodate visitors. Even so, the same bidding document provides for the construction of a vast number of buildings, rides and event facilities—as if the two parks were a Quinta da Boa Vista with alligators [Quinta da Boa Vista being an immensely popular and heavily visited landscaped urban park]. The list is enormous and the terms of reference nevertheless made clear that the winning bidders could propose even more interventions.

Even if this has since been corrected, Parques Cariocas’ first attempt revealed the ideology behind it: the surrender of all public spaces to private interests, with the possibility of excessive, or even senseless, interventions to attract more people, generate more revenue and boost the venture. Unfortunately for its proponents, a pilot project of sorts now underway at the Catacumba Municipal Natural Park and held up as a model by CCPAR’s president, is in fact a disaster. The winning bidder, Lagoa Aventuras, has widely failed to comply with deadlines and contractual clauses, except the one that allowed operations to begin the day after the contract was signed. Under normal circumstances, this concession should have been void and the contract rescinded long ago, as it is a glaring example of private sector inefficiency, to the detriment of the public.

A Festival of Irregularities

Beyond the day-to-day felling of trees in the city’s squares and streets by Comlurb, Light and clueless residents who face no enforcement, the list of larger-scale attacks on Rio de Janeiro’s greenery–whether due to omission or, more often, with the city government’s active participation–seems endless. It includes protected heritage sites, strictly protected municipal conservation units, beaches, mangroves and more. Nothing is immune to the mayor’s privatizing, urbanizing zeal, so we shall conclude with just a few examples.

Jardim de Alah, a broad complex of tree-lined squares between Ipanema and Leblon, was designated a protected heritage site in 2001 by decree of former Mayor César Maia, the man responsible for Eduardo Paes’s entry into politics. The park was left abandoned for a time, then turned into a subway construction site and once the works were completed, it was returned to the city government in a devastated state. Ignoring the law and residents’ repeated appeals, including successive proposals to revitalize the space while preserving its original characteristics, Eduardo Paes put out a bid for a disturbing project that would replace 130 trees with over 40 shops, bars, restaurants and parking spaces along the canal beside the park. It is a cross between a shopping mall and Puerto Madero, one that will trade the peace of this historic space, a haven of calm amid urban chaos, for yet another unwanted commercial frenzy. Fortunately, the State Prosecutor’s Office filed a public civil action to stop this blow against Rio’s greenery, to be carried out by a consortium cynically named “Rio Mais Verde” (Greener Rio).

The property that once housed the Bennett School in Flamengo, despite having been designated a protected heritage site in 2014 by Eduardo Paes himself, had 71 trees cut down between Christmas and New Year’s 2025—not coincidentally at a time of year [peak heat, during the holidays] when public reaction is low. This despite the fact that the preservation order had explicitly declared those trees immune from felling. Public reaction was intense. The State Prosecutor’s Office filed another civil action, and construction, as in Jardim de Alah, is currently suspended.

But the damage there has already been done, and business interests often bank on creating a fait accompli to later secure the right to profit from illegality in exchange for a few food baskets through a Conduct Adjustment Agreement. Another example of this policy is the notorious Sugarloaf zip line, which was effectively “gifted” the right by the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) to complete construction while awaiting the outcome of a civil action that may ultimately order its complete dismantling.

In Barra da Tijuca, at the spot known as Pepê, the Carioca Windsurf Association has occupied a large stretch of beach for over two decades with a board storage facility, at first a makeshift structure and later a colossal concrete bunker, fencing off a broad area and covering it with grass in front of the entrance for the exclusive use of its members. A public space was thus brazenly turned into a private club, where parties and other paid events are held under the city government’s complacent gaze. Because beaches are federal property, the matter was reported in 2001—yes, 2001—to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office by the Ecological Action Group, and the complaint was recently renewed by State Deputy Carlos Minc. Here too a civil action was filed, but too late, and the structure was allowed to be completed while still being challenged in court. Although it did not begin under the current administration, it grew and became entrenched thanks to the current SMAC’s omission, even though it is located within a municipal Environmental Protection Area.

Much more could be said, but what we have seen so far is already enough to show, beyond dispute, that we are in the midst of a fire sale of Rio’s natural heritage, under attack on multiple fronts at once. Residents’ associations, environmental organizations and outraged citizens acting on their own have responded vigorously, but this is a deeply uneven fight, one that evokes the old David-versus-Goliath cliché. For while on one side there are companies with legions of well-paid lawyers, fixers and publicists, on the other there are only people unwilling to accept the destruction of their beloved city by the greed that binds unscrupulous politicians and businesspeople together, and who, in resisting it, spend precious time and energy that could otherwise be devoted to work, study or family life. Be that as it may, we will not give up.

May Saint Sebastian, the city’s patron, protect us from these people.

About the Author: André Ilha is founding member of the Ecological Action Group (GAE), former director of Biodiversity and Protected Areas at INEA (Rio de Janeiro State Environmental Institute responsible for environmental licensing in the state), a climber of four decades and an amateur rock climbing guide since 1980.

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City councillor Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes were fatally shot eight years ago, on March 14, 2018, in Estácio, Rio de Janeiro, following one of hundreds, if not thousands of community meetings she had attended over her career as a human rights activist. On the eighth anniversary of her assassination, we are relieved to print this translation of a recent article by journalist Flávia Oliveira, summarizing the long battle for justice, published on February 28, 2026 in O Globo.

Nearly eight years after the atrocity was committed, the long road to punishing Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes’ killers has finally ended. The Brazilian Supreme Court’s (STF) First Panel has now unanimously convicted five more people involved in the crime. The outcome, crucial for a nation that sees itself as democratic, signals a rejection of impunity and acknowledgement of the relentless demands from the victims’ families, civil society and even international public opinion. No one left anyone’s side until the authorities were able to identify both those who carried out the killings and those who ordered the murder of the Rio councilwoman while she was in office.

The double homicide, as well as the attempted murder of Fernanda Chaves, Marielle’s aide and friend, exposed to Rio de Janeiro and Brazil the entrails of a death industry operating freely in a state where five governors and two presidents of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (ALERJ) have been put behind bars. The lid was lifted on the sewer that conceals the obscene connections between organized crime, the police and politics. All seven convicted were public officials—men trained, hired or elected to serve, yet who acted against the people.

Ronnie Lessa and Élcio de Queiroz—one the gunman, the other the driver of the car that carried the shooter—are former Military Police officers. In 2024, they were sentenced by a jury to 78 and 59 years in prison, respectively. This year, during the week of February 23, five others were tried at the Brazilian Supreme Court due to the parliamentary immunity of then-federal deputy Chiquinho Brazão. Yes, a lawmaker reelected in 2022 with 77,000 votes had ordered the councilwoman’s murder. Acting alongside him were his brother, Domingos Brazão, a former state deputy and member of the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Accounts (TCE-RJ) and Ronald Paulo de Alves, a Military Police major tasked with monitoring the councilwoman. The three were convicted of two counts of aggravated homicide and one attempted murder. The Brazão brothers, also found guilty of armed criminal organization, each received 76 years in prison; the police officer, 56.

Another public official involved was police chief Rivaldo Barbosa, former head of the Civil Police. He was convicted of corruption and obstruction of justice. He was acquitted of the homicide charges due to insufficient evidence but will serve 18 years in prison for acting to obstruct investigations, as proven. Federal Deputy Tarcísio Motta and City Councilwoman Mônica Benício, Marielle’s widow, both from the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), requested the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP-RJ) reopen investigations shelved when Barbosa held command positions in the state’s Civil Police. Finally, Robson Calixto Fonseca, an aide to Brazão at the TCE-RJ, was convicted of criminal organization.

The Supreme Court ordered that four of the five convicted lose their government jobs. Chiquinho Brazão [has already] lost his seat one year after his arrest—due to absences and not by vote of his peers. Justice did not come from the political class, an indication of the congressman’s influence within circles of power. When Chiquinho Brazão was arrested, only 18 of Rio de Janeiro’s 46 federal deputies voted in the Chamber of Deputies to keep him detained. Another 18 voted to overturn the arrest, three abstained and seven were absent from the session.

The police investigation, indictment by the Office of the Prosecutor General and votes of the four judges of the First Panel highlighted the role of Chiquinho and Domingos Brazão as militia leaders in Jacarepaguá, in Rio’s Southwest Zone. The criminal case revealed their involvement in land grabbing, exploitation of the real estate and services markets and the territorial, economic and electoral control of favelas. Having their interests challenged by Marielle Franco’s actions, they ordered the councilwoman’s execution, in an act that combines political violence, misogyny and racism. In the milieu of militia brutality, the councilwoman was a “killable” body.

The conviction of the defendants brings relief to those who, for many years, fought against impunity. Solving the crime also helped expose the entanglement of power structures with organized crime in Rio. Worse still, it remains in force. The Federal Police indicted TH Joias, a state deputy elected in 2022, and Rodrigo Bacellar, the president of ALERJ, on leave since December 2025, for involvement with the Comando Vermelho (Red Command) drug trafficking faction. The Red Command controls nearly half (47.5%) of favela territories under criminal control—an area of 150 km2 home to 1.6 million people—according to the Historical Map of Armed Groups in Rio, produced by the Fluminense Federal University’s Study Group on the New Illegalities (Geni/UFF) and the Fogo Cruzado Institute.

If it revived belief in [the ability to] punish the guilty, the trial also consolidated certainty that, in crimes against life, justice is always partial, never complete. The killers extinguished the life of a woman—mother, daughter, sister, wife, friend, professional—and of a man—father, son, husband, worker. Marielle and Anderson will not return. Never again [will we see] her, him, or the dreams they planted. In 2016, 46,000 voters cast their hopes voting for the political project of a Black woman born in a favela, who earned a master’s degree and spent a decade fighting for human rights. The crime committed by seven public officials stole from us what Marielle was. And what she promised.

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Check out our complete series of community media profiles here.

Founded in 2013, Fala Roça is a community media outlet based in Rocinha, in Rio de Janeiro’s South Zone. Its mission is to meet the many needs of Brazil’s largest favela. Through diverse initiatives, the outlet fosters integration within Rocinha—no small feat given the neighborhood’s vastness and high resident turnover. Over its 13 years, Fala Roça has built an important legacy by strengthening connections, promoting community improvements and citizenship.

Fala Roça was officially launched following a training program offered by the Agência de Redes para Juventude, which supports and empowers youth-led projects in Rio de Janeiro. Among them was the fledgling Fala Roça, which received seed funding to help take off.

Its first edition, released on May 13, 2013, was published solely in print—a format still used today alongside its website and social media platforms—as a deliberate effort to democratize access to news, according to executive producer Osvaldo Lopes. Not everyone in the favela is digitally literate or has digital devices.

“It’s extremely important because part of the population still isn’t online. When we talk about Rocinha, we’re talking about a community where many people are semi-literate or illiterate. So when we focus too heavily on digital, we end up excluding people who not only don’t know how to use technology, but even if they do, may not know how to properly consume that kind of news. Sometimes we need to read the newspaper to a resident to truly reach them. Someone might live at the very top of Rocinha and have no idea what’s happening down below, or they may only watch TV, and Rocinha only appears on TV when there’s a shootout. When a paper like Fala Roça arrives with positive stories about what’s happening in the community, people are often surprised. That’s why we strongly believe print journalism isn’t going to die.” — Osvaldo Lopes

From Farmland to Favela: Rocinha’s History

The newspaper’s name reflects a reclaiming of community memory. Long before it became the densely populated neighborhood it is today, filled with shops and buildings, the area was a vast and steep agricultural region known as the Quebra Cangalha Farm, owned by the Portuguese Castro Guidão brothers, according to the Rocinha Cultural Map. A fun fact about the region’s history is that it was once full of wooden yokes, called “cangalhas,” that broke easily (thus the name “quebra cangalha”) during animal transport.

Beginning in the 1930s, however, the farmland was subdivided under directives from the federal government, encouraging people from various regions to settle there and gradually shaping the favela as it exists today.

“Although the Castro Guidão company sold some land plots, it went bankrupt in 1938. Many residents did not pay off their debts, and people began occupying the company’s plots, claiming the land had no owner. The paving of Estrada da Gávea (Gávea Road) further contributed to the occupation of the hillside.” – Excerpt from the Rocinha Cultural Map

In 2015, Fala Roça was recognized as Cultural Heritage of the City of Rio de Janeiro through the “Local Actions” call for proposals, part of the city’s 450th anniversary celebrations. That same year, it launched the Rocinha Cultural Map, cataloging over 150 cultural initiatives within the community. The project helped connect local cultural activities with residents and strengthen collaboration across Rocinha.

A Tool for Grassroots Oversight, from Residents, for Residents

Fala Roça also plays an important role in holding public authorities accountable. In one investigation during the Covid-19 pandemic, the outlet questioned the appropriateness of installing a CT scanner in an evangelical church in the community. The report gained enough visibility that the equipment was eventually relocated to Rocinha’s Emergency Care Unit (UPA).

Around the same time, another report exposing vaccine shortages in the community led to the delivery of second doses, helping protect thousands of families from infection.

More recently, Fala Roça hosted the 3rd Conference on Favela and Peripheral Journalism, in partnership with Agência Mural. It was the first edition to bring together nearly 60 community media outlets from across Brazil.

 

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Um post compartilhado por Fala Roça (@jornalfalaroca)

Over the years, the paper has expanded its activities to include events such as the annual Viradão Cultural—a non-stop, free-of-charge open-air cultural occupation of Rocinha—and training programs focused on community communication, including the Favela Communication and Culture Network and the Communication and Cultural Management Course.

 

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Um post compartilhado por Fala Roça (@jornalfalaroca)

Today, Fala Roça has a team of 27 people, including ten full-time staff members and seven freelancers—most of whom are alumni of its training programs. In 2024 alone, around 300 people participated in its courses, workshops and seminars. According to reporter and institutional communications coordinator Karen Fontoura, offering stipends is essential.

“We always try to make sure participants come from favelas, whether from Rocinha or elsewhere. Whenever a grant allows us to offer a stipend to participants in one of our training programs, we make sure to pay them, because we understand that… it makes a difference. R$200 or R$300 (~US$40 or ~US$60) can help cover groceries for the month or transportation to get here.” — Karen Fontoura

The newspaper reaches 25,000 to 35,000 readers per month, and in 2025 it surpassed the milestone of 100,000 copies distributed, a number that underscores both the impact of Fala Roça’s work and the demand for community-based media. It also addresses needs often overlooked by mainstream media.

“There’s still a barrier between mainstream media and favela journalism. But the truth is, their work doesn’t exist without ours. They know they often can’t enter our territory, but we can produce high-quality, incredible work and still don’t get that recognition. They [mainstream media] often insist on formal journalism degrees, but Fala Roça is right here, operating. Everyone here is professionally trained in their respective fields, and we prove that people from the favela are capable. We’re powerful and we’ll continue producing communication on equal footing. Our main mission is to strengthen by-us-for-us media. We no longer need a [journalist] from the outside to come tell our stories. We’re fully capable of narrating our present and, together, building a quality future for the next generations and for those who are here now.” — Osvaldo Lopes

 

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Um post compartilhado por Agenda Rocinha 2030 (@agendarocinha2030)

“Together, We’re Stronger”

Despite their achievements, Lopes explains that some challenges—particularly police operations—remain without simple solutions and can disrupt the newspaper’s routine.

“A paper might be running normally, but something might happen in the community. The situation might not be very [positive]. If there’s a major shootout in another favela, how can we post a cheerful story on Instagram while everyone’s feeds are flooded with videos of police raids? Sometimes we hold back on certain content out of solidarity. It’s a community just like ours, so that’s a daily challenge. Still, we manage to resist and keep delivering what’s [of interest to the favela], what we believe in: a grandmother who saw her grandson in the paper, a local social project that gained momentum after being featured in Fala Roça… These are all impacts, big and small. What… [we focus on] are our people [Rocinha residents], those right beside us.” — Osvaldo Lopes

 

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Um post compartilhado por Fala Roça (@jornalfalaroca)

Despite the obstacles, Fala Roça continues to expand community media, citizen participation and integration in Rocinha.

“There was a piece about someone who is extremely well known here, a local school inspector named Petrô. He organized field trips, so a lot of people knew him, but no one knew where his nickname came from. We told that story in our print edition. A young reader commented: ‘I read his story and saw he started working when he was 12, just like me. I thought that was really cool.’ People truly feel represented, which doesn’t happen in other [larger] media outlets. We also think about how to expand our training programs because we get so much [positive] feedback, from residents and from visibility within the community, which is crucial for Fala Roça. Our goal is to speak with the community and reach as many people as possible, because together we’re stronger.” — Karen Fontoura

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Released in full in 2025, the trilogy Valongo’s New Blacks Cemetery – An Impactful Journey Through the History of Slavery in Brazil, organized by the New Blacks Institute (IPN) and João Carlos Nara Jr., reveals a registry of Rio de Janeiro’s history that over a significant period was erased: records of Black deaths.

Across its three volumes, The Wharf and the Cemetery: from the Arrival of the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro to the First Restrictions on the Slave Trade, Death at Valongo: History and Memory of Africans in Rio de Janeiro and Silences That Scream: Testimonies of African Slavery in Rio de Janeiro, the author uses real historical documents, particularly death records from Santa Rita Church, the few that survived mold and termites, and others linked to the New Blacks Cemetery, to reconstruct how enslaved Africans were treated from disembarkation to death in Little Africa, in downtown Rio.

These documents reveal a brutal routine: bodies buried in haste, deaths ignored and a full, institutionalized dehumanization.

Author João Carlos Nara Jr. uncovered numerous details drawn from the death records, among them the so-called “Marca da Carregação,” a “cargo mark” burned into the skin of enslaved people with a hot iron.

“Perhaps one of the most striking things in the book is the so-called ‘cargo mark,’ a seal [placed] on the ‘merchandise’ [on the enslaved]. People would take a scalding-hot iron, the kind used to brand cattle, and mark the person who was to be exported. It’s hard to talk about it that way, but that’s what it was. So the book has this singular characteristic that distinguishes it from other death registers you’d find in church records. Those people are unnamed, but you identify them through the marks on their skin. The fact is that in addition to the ‘cargo marks,’ people also carried on their bodies the marks of their own land—that is, the tattoos of their culture, which they’d brought from home. So there was a coexistence of two types of marks: the mark imposed by the violence of commerce and the mark of culture.” — João Carlos Nara Jr.

By turning these records into narrative, the author reminds us that the city was built not only upon these bodies but also upon a politics of forgetting. The trilogy does what public authorities never have: it restores origin, context and integrity to lives erased from official maps.

According to Merced Guimarães dos Anjos, president of the New Blacks Institute, recovering these stories is fundamental to reshaping the future.

“It’s very sad when you see this transcription, the silence that screams. [The documents/records] have no age, have no name, but they do have some of the places [where] they came from, the ships that brought them here. And [some details], more or less: whether they were a girl, a boy, a ‘new Black’ or a ‘cria,’ [the child of an enslaved woman] as they used to say back then, right? It’s very sad. And nothing’s changed… we’re still losing children and youth even today. In my view, slavery is still ongoing, you know? The New Blacks Cemetery has a lot to tell about this history of Brazil’s past, of the city, that they want to silence. They [the elites, to this day] want to exclude Little Africa from modernity. They want to destroy the cemetery because it’s a place of pain, a place that shows the truth of what happened. They want to preserve Cais do Valongo, [to reduce history to] ‘Oh, Cais do Valongo, [they] arrived through here, ‘the people’ [from Africa],’ and that doesn’t hurt as much as it does when you go to the New Blacks Cemetery and come face to face [with the bodies of the new Blacks killed by the slave trade].” — Merced Guimarães dos Anjos

It is precisely at this point that the work engages with the present. The region where the records were taken from, i.e., the Port Region, Valongo and the area surrounding the New Blacks Cemetery, became, in later decades, a space of urban abandonment, racial violence and the criminalization of poverty. The same region where enslaved bodies were discarded, later became an area designated for the precarious housing of poor workers.

This development is no coincidence: it demonstrates how the dehumanizing logic found in the death records persisted in how the city distributes rights, infrastructure and humanity. The Port Region’s first low-income housing occupations set the stage for a process that would spread throughout Rio’s favelas.

Nara Jr.’s trilogy helps trace this historical thread. These documents reveal lives marked by neglect, not registered as citizens but as discarded property. This reality still resonates today in how the State manages predominantly Black communities. Philosopher Achille Mbembe calls this necropolitics: a politics that decides who dies, who lives and who merely survives—with fewer rights, less protection and less social worth.

When one looks at Rio’s favelas from the perspective of racial violence rooted in the nation’s slave-holding past, it becomes clear that today’s cycle of violence and denial of rights did not arise by chance. It is the continuation of an age-old, structural logic: assigning certain bodies and territories to abandonment and death. According to Nara Jr., documenting these deaths in books is an essential step towards reparations.

“These are too many people for such a tiny cemetery. So many people! The impact is enormous. I confess that when I was working on this, it hurt a lot, because you start reading a record, then another, and it’s all very much the same. And it almost feels like you’re getting used to it. But you can’t get used to it, you know?

You’re dealing with pain, with death, with the relatives’ grief, with the people who were around. Because I think even the people who were more directly involved—the priest recording the death, the gravedigger carrying out the burial, the person there [employee] whose job was to carry the deceased. For those people, all of this must have been very distressing. When we look at documentation from the period discussing the end of the slave trade, everyone admits that it was indeed wrong. There was a sense of unease about that situation. Of course, there were [also] people who became incredibly rich [from slavery].” — João Carlos Nara Jr.

The author’s trilogy opens up the perspective that, even today in relation to favelas, there is a way of governing Black lives that normalizes death in the most undignified ways. It documents how Black people were denied the right to mourn, to funeral rites or to any kind of respect for their bodies—something that is also present in contemporary scenes.

By recovering the New Blacks and Santa Rita death records, the trilogy compels us to confront the fact that urban inequality in Rio has deep roots that, despite attempts at erasure, are still documented and persist to this day. We must acknowledge that the city of Rio de Janeiro was built upon piles of Black bodies and that this past, as the Mangueira samba school sang during Carnival 2025, is still “just under the Earth’s surface.”

About the author: Paulo Gabriel dos Santos is an undergraduate student in social sciences at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). Having taught children with special needs at a public school near the favela of São Carlos, he has recently begun working as a community communicator with the aim of making favela knowledge and information reach as many people as possible.

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