Racetrack Project Could End One of Last Few Flat Stretches of Rio’s Atlantic Forest

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On August 7th a “Virtual Public Hearing” of the Rio de Janeiro State Environmental Control Commission (CECA), a body of the State Environment Secretariat (SEA), will be held to discuss the construction of a racetrack for Formula 1 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in the neighborhood of Deodoro, within the Camboatá Forest area.

The online hearing and the plan for deforestation are mobilizing critical positions by environmentalists, urban planners, intellectuals, and artists activists with environmental agendas. The issue is at the forefront of debates involving the city of Rio de Janeiro in recent days.

According to environmentalists, the racetrack proposal threatens to cut down 200,000 trees, one of the last fragments of Atlantic Forest in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Currently, the area is occupied by the Army.

“Although Rio de Janeiro still harbors significant extensions of hillside forest in its three large ‘green lungs’ – Pedra Branca, Tijuca, and Gericinó-Mendanha – the typical lowland species have few possible refuges,” says André Ilha, former president of Rio de Janeiro’s State Forest Institute.

In May this year, the SOS Floresta do Camboatá Movement, the Baia Viva Movement and ten other community organizations and ecological groups sent a Judicial Representation to the State Prosecutor’s Office, which succeeded in obtaining a State Court Injunction, suspending the virtual public hearing that the GOERJ, the Rio de Janeiro City Hall and the International Auto Racing Federation wanted to hurriedly conduct online, without popular participation, amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

On July 16th, Federal Supreme Court (STF) Chief Justice, José Antônio Dias Toffoli, overturned the injunction secured by the Rio Prosecutor’s Office (MP-RJ).

“This is yet another chapter in a game directly influenced by the interests of powerful economic groups, such as the FIA (International Motor Racing Federation). This online Public Hearing, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, intends to hastily and in violation of the environmental and urbanistic laws in force in the country, request the City Hall of Rio de Janeiro the absurd Preliminary License for the building of the predatory Deodoro Racetrack,” says Sérgio Ricardo, founding member of the Baía Viva Movement.

The movement “For the preservation of the Camboatá Forest! May the race track be elsewhere” has existed since 2011.

“The unfortunate decision of the STF Chief Justice leads us to rethink and see that the deforestation scandal in the Amazon is nothing but a reflection of a general culture. The ignorance on which the deforestation scandal is based is reproduced throughout the country, in the remaining forest fragments scattered throughout the cities. The hope was that, in Rio, in the so-called Marvelous and cultured city, it would be different. Justice Toffoli, in the 21st century, still thinks differently. It’s a shame because this project is also an international scandal,” says professor Sonia Rabello.

According to studies by the Botanical Garden Institute of Rio de Janeiro (IJBRJ), the Camboatá Forest is “an area of high potential for marking matrix trees of native Atlantic forest species for seed collection and production of seedlings for the restoration of degraded areas.”

The study on the region also points out that despite being relatively small, it has great relevance for the maintenance of the genetic viability of native animal and plant populations in Rio de Janeiro’s natural areas.

In addition, the city’s Sustainable Urban Development Master Plan considers the area as a “Site of Relevant Environmental and Landscape Interest”; it is part of a project of the city hall itself called “Green Corridors”, for potentially enabling the connection of the Pedra Branca and Mendanha massifs; and Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Plan for the Conservation and Recovery of the Atlantic Forest identifies lowland forests as priority areas for environmental conservation in the form of conservation units.

Moreover, the Forest contributes to better air quality and temperature control in the surrounding region.

Artists like Caetano Veloso, Marcos Palmeira, and Maitê Proença, among others, joined the SOS Floresta de Camboatá Movement.

“It’s quite symbolic that a city hall with no notion of how to run a city like Rio wants to deforest in order to make room for a sport that pollutes heavily, such as motorsports. There are other places to build this Racetrack. Where the old city racetrack used to be, where the little-used Olympic Park is located, this is one of the many options,” says urbanist Marcelo Brito.

Rio’s City Hall reported in an edition of the city’s official Gazette last year that it estimates an annual economic impact of R$625.6 million (US$160.3 million) for the city, in addition to the creation of approximately 7,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to studies by Crown Consultancy.

The City also mentioned the partnership with the state and federal governments for the construction of the Racetrack. In a full page of the Municipal Gazette dedicated to the subject, not one line mentioned deforestation and the environmental impacts it may cause.

“From the very beginning, considering the whole context, this is a very bad idea, outdated,” concluded Marcelo Brito.