The Federal Justice in Rio de Janeiro determined on Thursday (1st) the stoppage of the work for the installation of a zip line on the Sugar Loaf and Urca hills, in the south zone of the Rio de Janeiro capital.
The Judiciary responded to a request for an injunction in a public civil action filed by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) against the company Companhia Caminho Aéreo Pão de Açúcar, which also operates the cable car and, since last year, has been carrying out works to install the zip line, with an estimated length of 755 meters and a descent speed of up to 100 km/h.
According to the MPF, between September 15, 2022 and January 17, 2023, the company operating the cable car cut 127.83 cubic meters of rocks from the Pão de Açúcar and Urca hills without authorization or knowledge from the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan), with the commercial objective of installing a zip line between these hills.
The MPF also states that, on February 6, 2023, instead of administratively embargoing and prosecuting the company, Iphan authorized the continuation of the works, thus becoming co-responsible for the damage caused to the landscape and geological heritage.
The court decision orders the company to immediately refrain from making cuts or drilling in rock or carrying out any intervention on the Sugar Loaf, Urca and Babilônia hills that involve demolition or construction of new elements or construction of a building on empty land, under penalty of of fine.
In the action proposed by the Public Prosecutor Sergio Gardenghi Suiama, the MPF also requests that the company present a recovery plan for the area degraded by the works and a proposal for a Master Plan for the entire area object of the concession of use, with any expansion of the built-up area or modification of the uses recognized at the time of the federal listing and the granting of the UNESCO world heritage title.
Finally, the MPF requests that the company and Iphan be jointly and severally condemned to indemnify the community for irreversible damage caused to the geological and landscape heritage, in an amount not less than R$ 50 million. There is still no judicial decision on these two requests.
One of the best-known and most visited postcards in Brazil, the Urca and Pão de Açúcar hills are Federal property, listed at the federal level and recognized since 2012 as a world heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Culture (Unesco), in the Carioca Landscapes category: Between the Mountain and the Sea.
The proposal to install a zipline on the Sugar Loaf and Urca hills provoked protests and a demonstration by the Brazilian committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), Unesco’s advisory body for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention.
According to the Icomos opinion attached to the MPF action, “the approval of this intervention compromises the authenticity and integrity of the property in question and opens precedents for other mischaracterizations in natural heritage sites in its surroundings”.
Still according to the manifestation of Icomos, the installation of the zip line could make the Sugar Loaf be included in the list of world heritage sites in danger or even exclude the landscape of Rio de Janeiro from the list of world heritage sites.
In a note released this Friday night (2), the company responsible for the zipline says it will challenge the court decision.
“Parque Bondinho complied with all the legal procedures required for the interventions carried out on the two hills and obtained the necessary authorizations from all the relevant licensing bodies: Iphan, Instituto Rio Patrimônio da Humanidade, Municipal Secretariat for the Environment and Climate, Municipal Secretariat of Economic Development, Innovation and Simplification and GEO-RIO”.
The company also states that “it will spare no efforts to demonstrate that the construction work on the zipline has been carried out under the best practices, highlighting the care in relation to the preservation of the environment”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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