Covid-19: New memorial park for victims and healthcare workers in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Rio de Janeiro has gained a memorial park and protected green area by creating the Bosque da Memória (Memory Wood) in the Recreio dos Bandeirantes neighborhood in the city’s West Zone.

Eduardo Cavaliere, municipal environmental secretary, announced this on Sunday, and the relevant decree was published this Monday, November 22.

The park is intended to memorialize and pay homage to the many victims of the Covid-19 pandemic and the healthcare workers who have continued working during this difficult time.

Trees were planted with the names of individual victims, the specific trees chosen by the family with guidance from environmental authorities. However, the memorial is intended to recall not just named victims but all the many thousands that perished in the pandemic in the city.

The Bosque da Memória is located on Alameda Sandra Alvim and designed to respect the local restinga vegetation. Primarily native trees have been planted, including pitanga, paineiras, pau brasil, and ipê.

The project is supported by the United Nations Environment Program, which seeks to make the 2020s the decade of ecosystem restoration, in this case, that of the globally significant restinga coastal forest vegetation in Rio de Janeiro and other parts of Brazil.

In addition, the corridor connects with the Chico Mendes Municipal Park, an important local wildlife refuge where broad-snouted caimans can be found. As mentioned in the Rio Times previously, this is important. The location and linking up of wildlife refuges is critical and can make even a small one like this punch far above its weight.

Initially announced in May, two ceremonies took place in June of this year, during which 30 symbolic trees were planted. More trees were later added, and now official protection has been given to the area, meaning that no structures can be built on it.

The site will be under the responsibility of the Environmental Secretariat of the city and will be administered through the city parks service. The Alameda in which the park is located is named after Sandra Poleshuck Faria Alvim, an art historian and researcher in Colonial Religious Architecture.

Local architect Isabelle de Loys has undertaken much of the work and vision for this area through the Adote Rio program, which allows business and local communities to adopt areas.

Rio is not the only place in Brazil to gain similar memorials, with a memorial sculpture being erected in São Paulo’s Carmo Park and the planting of Atlantic rainforest trees and a memorial square inaugurated in Curitiba. More dramatically, in India, a park has been made in the city of Bhopal using the ashes of Covid victims.

The Bosque da Memória, while only 2.7 hectares in size, is nonetheless an essential green space for residents in this heavily urbanized city. The combination of environmental protection, public memorial, and local amenity is a happy convergence of the different needs of the city’s residents.