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STORY: BRAZIL / AGRIHOODS
TRT: 04:51
SOURCE: UNIFEED / UN NEWS
RESTRICTIONS: SEE SHOT LIST
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: SEE SHOT LIST
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
1. Wide shot, arial view of agrihood
2. Close up shot, pictures of agrihood
3. Wide shot, stakeholders and investors surveying an agrihood village
31 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, UNEP (speaking from Geneva, Switzerland):
“The most interesting finding from the State of Finance for Nature report is that the amount of money being spent on nature-based solutions are what I would call pocket money. 220 billion sounds like a lot, but it’s a fraction of one per cent of global GDP. And on the other hand, our entire economy depends on eroding on their natural capital base. So basically, for every dollar that we’re spending on nature-based solutions, we’re spending 30 dollars on destroying nature.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
5. Various shots, general views of agrihood
31 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, UNEP (speaking from Geneva, Switzerland):
“Basically, ecosystem breakdown starts to percolate into the real economy in terms of higher cost, more uncertainty, lower security of supply, more uncertainty for banks what to finance. And so, these risks are manifesting in a systemic way in our global economy.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
7. Close up shot, map of agrihood
8. Various shots, general views of agrihood
31 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, UNEP:
“We need to think about nature in in a more broader term, not just in the form of pristine nature, like I personally would love to see pristine coral reefs and forests to relax, rethink about nature, quoting the Secretary-General, for example, that “we need to work with nature rather than against nature.” And what does it mean? It means bringing nature into cities in terms of green roofs and parks so that in very hot days or weeks people have more shade and it reduces the heat island effect and therefore increases well-being and also productivity of people.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
10. Various shots, stakeholders and investors surveying an agrihood village
31 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Ivo Mulder, Head, Climate Finance Unit, UNEP:
“People do see that days are becoming more hot, that climate change is having real impact, that ecosystem degradation is having real impact, and they want to see these reports translated into real life positive examples. And I think there’s plenty of cities around the globe from Copenhagen to Paris to Leon to other cities, as well as urban areas, where this is being applied. What is needed now is to make that more the rule rather than the exception basically.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
12. Various shots, Marcia Mikai, an architect and urban planner conducting a workshop
28 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Marcia Mikai, architect, urban planner, Pentagrama Projetos em Sustentabilidade e Regeneração (speaking from Brasilia, Brazil):
“When I started talking about agrihoods, people thought I was becoming a hippie again. And I had to prove that I was not a hippie. That agrihood is a real state. Very profitable in the United States nowadays, this kind of development is increasing a lot. They are getting very attractive for the public in general. And I was one of the first people here in Brazil talking about this.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
14. Various shots, Marcia Mikai conducting a workshop
28 JANUARY 2026, NEW YORK CITY
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Marcia Mikai, architect, urban planner, Pentagrama Projetos em Sustentabilidade e Regeneração (speaking from Brasilia, Brazil):
“Another thing that I really believe in is the possibility of integration of multiple generations. Because nowadays, people are separated. This is the place of youth. This is the place of elderly people. This is the place of low-income people. This is the place of rich people. And I really think that we could integrate more, I really believe in all these things. Maybe I am a romantic, but I really see that there are a lot of romantic solutions in reality.”
FILE – 2022, CURITIBA, PARANÁ, BRAZIL - CREDIT BELTERRA ARCHIVE
16. Wide shot, family holding hands
17. Various shots, general views of agrihood
18. Various shots, stakeholders and investors surveying an agrihood village
Towns and cities, home to more than half of the global population, are responsible for around 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis. Urban planners in Brazil are leading a design revolution that could point the way to creating built up areas with a dramatically smaller carbon footprint.
It’s somewhat of an understatement to say that the way that cities have traditionally grown has not been a good news story for the planet. Poor (or non-existent) planning has led to a litany of ills, such as flooding, heat islands (when built up areas become much hotter that rural areas) and water scarcity.
At the same time, cities have become detached from food and nature. The growing distance between urban life and farmland fuels deforestation, emissions, and a loss of ecological awareness.
But Marcia Mikai and her colleagues think they have an answer to unsustainable urban sprawl. They call it the agrihood. Her company, Pentagrama Projetos em Sustentabilidade e Regeneração, is reimagining how cities grow, in a way that powers the restoration of ecosystems, builds climate resilience and develops healthy communities.
The urban planners, designers and architects at Pentagrama are putting their ideas into practice in several Brazilian cities, notably São Paolo, whose wider metropolitan area is encroaching on the farmland and forest that once marked the boundaries between urban and rural zones, as its population of 22 million people expands.
But Mikai’s model is designed to arrest the spread, by bringing degraded land – often abandoned after being used for unsustainable practices, such as intensive cattle grazing – back to life.
In this version of the agrihood (a term that became popular to market residential developments in the US), the land is regenerated to combine sustainable forestry practices with mixed-use buildings (work and residential) and spaces for environmental education.
These new look neighbourhoods work in tandem with nature, so that they almost become part of the natural environment. Native and edible plants and trees are replanted, helping to cooling cities, and reduce flood risk by slowing surface runoff, whilst also replenishing aquifers.
Endangered species pushed out of cities find a refuge, shared green spaces reconnect residents with their food and community and the biodiverse environment actively sucks carbon from the atmosphere, turning urban growth into climate action.
The Brazilian agrihoods (Pentagrama is also working in Brasilia and Curitiba) are proving the point made by the UN: that investing in “nature-positive” brings healthy environmental and economic returns.
Earlier this month, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released their latest State of Finance for Nature report, which finds that the amount of money flowing into investments that harms the planet (in areas such as utilities, fossil fuel energy and construction) is 30 times greater than that spent on nature-positive solutions such as agrihoods.
Ivo Mulder, the head of the climate finance unit at UNEP, says that the current extraction of the environment needs to change because “the iceberg below the water is that, whilst this nature-negative finance is driving our economies, it will eventually drive our economies into the ground.”
As well as arguing for policy reforms in the report, Mulder thinks that the way we think about nature also has to change. “People often talk about nature in terms of pristine environments, such as fenced -off national parks. But we need to think more about embedding nature into our day-to-day lives, adapting our cities to be able to cope with extreme weather so that, when there’s heavy rain, our streets and homes don’t get flooded.” This mindset, says Mulder, should not only extend to leaders in the real estate sector, tourism, manufacturing, but also the general population.
“In this time of geopolitical uncertainty, people have a relatively pessimistic view of the world at the moment, but they need to imagine a positive alternative. For example, what would New York look like if it incorporated more nature-based solutions? It could have more green areas, you wouldn’t need to use as much air conditioning in summer and this could lead to more productivity and a thriving economy.”
Background:
The agrihood projects of Pentagrama Projetos em Sustentabilidade e Regeneração are supported by UNEP’s BioCidades Empreendedoras, an incubation programme designed to support 50 early-stage entrepreneurs working on urban climate resilience solutions in São Paulo and Curitiba. BioCidades Empreendedoras is supported by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Bridge for Billions and Instituto Legado (organisations supporting social entrepreneurship). The project is inspired by the UN Decade of on Ecosystem Restoration, a chance to shift away from policies that plunder the planet and revive the natural world.
