Other Biophilic Urban Strategies

The city of Rio de Janeiro is to many synonymous with spectacular natural beauty—sea and beaches with dramatic mountains lurching abruptly skyward, like Corcovado mountain rising more than 2300 feet. The combination of mountains, sea, and lush Atlantic Forest create the conditions for a biophilic city. But it is not a perfect story, as population growth and development have nibbled away at these qualities. More than 6 million live in the city, and more than 12 million in the Rio metropolitan area, making it Brazil’s second-largest city. Pierre-André Martin, writing in the Nature of Cities blog, notes that even though the city has protected large natural areas—about one-third of the city’s land area—the city continues to lose its more accessible, everyday nature. As Martin says, these larger parks “are at the edges of the city with few entrances and distant from the central cores. On the one hand they provide excellent stages for conservation, but their remoteness means that most residents have little contact with nature except for distant views. Natural landscapes in Rio are more background than foreground” (Martin 2012). As Cecilia Herzog writes, urban biodiversity and nature conservation have not been high on the list of political priorities lately (Herzog 2012).