A zip line being installed on Rio de Janeiro's famous Sugar Loaf promises adrenaline-pumping with breathtaking views, but conservationists fear it will 'disfigure' one of the landscapes the most iconic in the world.
This controversial project, whose inauguration is scheduled for the second half of the year, aims to diversify the tourist offer on this site which already receives 1.6 million visitors a year.
It provides for the installation of four steel cables to connect the Sugarloaf, which culminates at 396 m, to its neighbour, the "Morro da Urca", the hill of Urca, 220 m above the level of the sea.
For adventure candidates, it is a crossing of 755 meters, at a speed of up to 100 km/h.
"A unique and environmentally friendly experience," says the company that manages the site, Parque Bondinho.
Not enough to convince the dozens of demonstrators gathered Sunday at the foot of the Sugar Loaf to protest against this project which they consider harmful to the environment and the image of the "Marvelous City".
"It will only harm our city," psychologist Gricel Osorio Hor-Meyll, a member of the NGO Ecological Action Group and the Sugar Loaf movement without zip lines, told AFP.
According to her, the zip line will "disfigure" this landscape classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site of the Sugarloaf is there as well as the Christ the Redeemer of Corcovado, also perched on a green hill with a breathtaking view of the bay of Rio.
Critics of the project point to the risks for the fauna and flora of the site, already affected according to them by the numerous overflights of tourist helicopters and by night events organized on the hill of Urca.
Another source of concern: the perforations in the rock to fix the cables.
"It's not just rock, there is life" on the Sugarloaf, says Gricel Osorio Hor-Meyll, recalling that the site is also protected by the Brazilian Heritage and Artistic Institute (Iphan ).
The Parque Bondinho company, which has been managing the cable cars that allow you to climb to the top of the monolith for more than a century, claims to have "obtained all the necessary licenses" from the authorities.
According to her, the visual impact will be reduced, the cables of the zip lines being thinner than those of the cable car which already connects the Sugarloaf to the hill of Urca, and they vibrate less.
Parque Bondinho says he consulted civil society associations before setting up the project. But the demonstrators who brandish signs "SOS Unesco" or "No to the zip line" denounce on the contrary the absence of dialogue.
An online petition has collected more than 11,000 signatures.
In a press release, the Pain de sucre sans zipline movement says that this project is only "the tip of a gigantic iceberg".
According to this group, the company that manages the site intends to build other attractions, shops, a theater and a nightclub.
"It's horrible, monstrous, it would be the end of Sugarloaf," laments Regina Costa de Paula, a 67-year-old visual artist.
The Parque Bondinho company "acts as if the Sugarloaf belongs to it", adds Hans Rauschmayer, a 57-year-old German who lives in Rio de Janeiro.
"But in fact, it is the heritage of Rio, of Brazil and of the whole world".
03/27/2023 18:09:03 - Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
