Brazil, 2023
[Name] and I arrived in São Paulo early yesterday morning. Over the next few days, we will be attending the RTRS (Roundtable on Responsible Soy) annual meeting. We are staying in the Bela Vista area of the city and today we took a walk around Ibirapuera Park, a green oasis for walkers, joggers, skaters, cyclists and families with children. The extensive lakes attract white and black swans, as well as cormorants. The lake shores are fringed with jacarandas in bloom and their mauve carpets. Many of the pathways are tree-lined tunnels, bristling with epiphyte fronds.
Although I visited Brazil in 2010, this is my first time in Sao Paulo. In many ways, big cities are increasingly alike all around the world – and most are not visually attractive. And yet, there are always nuances – the style of coffee shops and street markets, the social norms and attitudes (here, for example, the number of openly gay couples showing affection is notable), and the variations in architecture and fashion. As is common in many developing countries – or is it rather in tropical and warmer climates – the bright colours of textiles and street art are delightful.
Diary entry, 2 October 2023
Today is our last full day in Brazil, so we are taking it easy up on the pool deck of our hotel (Pestana), which overlooks Copacabana beach in Rio. Yesterday, we did the city tour, visiting Sugarloaf mountain, the Sebastian cathedral, the Selarón staircase, Maracana stadium, Rio carnival parade area, and Christ statue. It was a moment of great contentment having a coffee and juice at the Sugarloaf restaurant while black vultures rode the thermals all around us.
The previous day, we did a jeep tour of the forest surrounding Rio, including the Tijuca National Park. It is the largest urban forest in the world, and an inspiring example of nature restoration. After large areas around the city were deforested to make way for coffee plantations, the city’s water source came under threat. The plantations were abandoned and Emperor Pedro II, Brazil’s last monarch, ordered replanting throughout the 19th century. Today, the protected area extends to around 10,000 acres and many species have returned.
The rest of our time in Rio has been spent visiting the beaches – Copacabana and Ipanema – and generally relaxing. I have been recovering from flu (maybe COVID), which I seemed to pick up at the RTRS conference, or on the plane over. [Name] also had a few days feeling under the weather. We both have legs covered in bites after we forgot to use insect spray on the jungle tour. But we feel very lucky to have this break to rest and rejuvenate. We managed to find some vegan restaurants in the city as well, and a music jam in the park.
Before arriving in Rio, we had the RTRS field trip in Uberlandia, where we visited a large soy farm (10,000 hectares) and a small farm (500 hectares), as well as a soy processing plant. The scale of the operations is remarkable, and although there are some regenerative practices, like crop rotation and cover crops, it is hard to see this as a genuinely sustainable model. Although farms are required to protect indigenous forest (20% to 80% depending on the region), there is little biodiversity on the cultivated areas that extend for miles and miles.
Diary entry, 17 October 2023
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