RIO DE JANEIRO – I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at Cocotá. The large plaza, 11 hectares (27 acres) snatched from the sea by land reclamation more than five decades ago, was all too familiar. Everything in it was more or less as I remembered, from the skate tracks and sport courts to the concrete benches and walkways. Everything, save for the small, curious cluster of trees I’d come to visit, which looked more like a small forest than just another garden built by the city administration. Cocotá is a neighborhood of Governor’s Island (or Ilha do Governador), a 39-square-kilometer (15-square-mile) island in the northeastern part of Rio de Janeiro. A large section of the island is occupied by the Brazilian Air Force and Rio’s international airport, leaving roughly half of its area to the more than 200,000 residents. Not long ago, I used to be one of them, which made the object of my visit all the more surprising: I would never expect an agroforest — where useful trees, shrubs and annual plants are grown together in a system that provides fruits, vegetables and habitat for animals — to take root here, in the middle of my city. My hosts for the evening were enjoying the shade of the miniature “food forest,” as agroforestry plots are often called. Victor Huggo, a local architect, rose from his seat at the roots of a jambolan tree (Malabar plum, Syzygium cumini) to greet me. Across from him was Lucas…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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