Against the grain: environmental laws, local botanical knowledge, and housing access in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract This article considers how the construction practices of marginalized communities in Rio de Janeiro link provision essential housing to distant forest environments and markets for wood building materials. As elsewhere Brazil, many families without access real estate have built their own homes using locally available materials, a right protected by 1988 Constitution federal law. Today, these houses are typically from reinforced concrete clay bricks finished with roof tile or cheaper fiber-cement corrugate. Production sale fiber-cement, which contains asbestos, were restricted State law 2001 ruled unconstitutional Brazil’s Supreme Court 2017. But little attention has been given human environmental health effects other examines timber frame tiles affixed. Maçaranduba is main used most traded production linked social violence. laws presently subsidize plantation-grown pine eucalyptus as “sustainable” alternatives native hardwoods. The chemical treatments commonly applied render woods resistant decay, however, contain potent toxins. Moreover, degree builders actually use products unstudied. We argue that legislation moved “against grain” close botanical knowledge expressed vernacular architectures needs socio-ecologies intimately through housing.