Guerrilla gardening recovers public spaces – 08/04/2023 – Daily life

In front of a building with a mirrored façade on Avenida Faria Lima, in the west zone of São Paulo, a banana tree, pumpkin plants, pigeon peas and sweet potatoes, as well as various types of edible and medicinal plants, grow in a small flower bed.

The same happens almost 20 kilometers away in a square in the Parada Inglesa neighborhood, in the north zone, where the lawn, previously degraded, shares space with a pitanga tree and crops of sweet potato, boldo, mint, turmeric, purple taioba, ora-pro-nobis, mitsubá (Japanese parsley), basil, among other vegetables.

In common, the two gardens were planted, and are maintained, by residents of the surrounding area who decided to revitalize public spaces, literally, with their own hands, as part of the guerrilla gardening movement.

The seedlings are planted in public spaces spontaneously and without support from the municipal authorities. “In the tree beds, there were very sad seedlings”, says environmental educator Mariana Marchesi, 38, from the time she started cultivating the lawn in Largo da Batata, in 2015. “The idea was to create resilient gardens to create trees that resist the bad weather because we needed green and shade.”

That year, the square had just undergone a renovation that paved it with cement. A small lawn was left where some trees had already been planted, such as a guabijú tree, a species native to the Atlantic Forest.

“We made an agroforestry in reverse. The trees were already there and we planted them in the surroundings to create a more closed vegetation”, says Mariana about the system that uses plantings of different species simultaneously to simulate what happens in nature.

To keep the plants irrigated in the dry season, she says she used a hose long enough to cross Avenida Faria Lima from a partner brewery on the other side of the road, which allowed her to use the establishment’s water.

At Parada Inglesa, permaculturist and visual artist Regina Yassoe Fukuhara, 56, started growing it “sniffly” about two years ago in a square near her house.

So as not to draw attention, she says, filling a large bag with seedlings harvested in her backyard and pushing them in a streetcar to the square. Tools are also carried hidden. “I’m always crammed with plants. It’s the resistance. I feel like nature is using me to spread the plants,” she says.

In the undertaking, she has as an accomplice a neighbor who lives in front of the square. Without agreeing, they started to keep the bed in order. When Regina arrived, she says that the neighbor had already planted lemongrass in the square. “It’s a movement that’s a bit on the sidelines, a bit of a solitary thing. I’ve tried to do a mutirão, but it didn’t work”, she says.

The same problem is faced by Mariana in maintaining the Batatas Jardineiras project at the Pinheiros construction site. Currently, the mission is carried out by her, a friend and a helper who receives R$ 300 a month to remove the garbage that accumulates among the plants.

He is also responsible for raising the awareness of homeless people not to turn the construction site into a bathroom.

Another challenge is to educate the square’s visitors so that they don’t use the flower pots installed in the middle of the wooden benches as trash cans. “We got land donated and planted boldinho there, it’s a very resistant plant.”

The Regional City Hall of Pinheiros said in a note that there are many people in the street, with tents that generate a large volume of garbage. “However, daily sweeping takes place along the entire length of Largo da Batata to keep the place free of garbage and dirt.”

A guerrilla gardener for 14 years, technical educator Rodrigo Burckauser Robert, 37, explains that the term is still new in Brazil, although it is used in Europe. “I like to arrive in an inhospitable place, take out the garbage and start planting. Leave this place and see people take care of it”, he says.

This was done in a vacant lot turned into an irregular garbage dump behind a state school in Jaçanã, in the north zone. Today, the place is frequented by residents who harvest plant seedlings. “We chose the worst place, with the most garbage. The energy of the whole neighborhood changes”, says Robert.

Another vacant lot has housed a community garden for about two years that feeds about 100 families in one occupation, in Jardim Julieta, on the border of the São Paulo capital with Guarulhos, in Greater São Paulo. “I’ve always worked in companies and started to relate to people from the environmental movement. I wasn’t born in the countryside, so I had to learn by doing”, says professor Beto Corunha, 37, who started the community garden as part of his master’s degree in science social.

Today, every Sunday, residents harvest cabbage, kale, coriander, banana, boldo, pepper, taro, lemon, sugar cane. “People line up because, in general, they eat very poorly”, says Corunha, who says he started the garden with just a hoe and it took him three days to remove all the rubbish from the land.