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Retired man plants trees on forgotten land, now it's Sao Paulo's largest park

(timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

It's slightly annoying that it literally says in the article that he has a photo album showing the growth of the area over time, yet the article chooses to use an AI-generated image at the top instead to depict that. An AI-generated image that looks like shit. What a way to represent this man's incredible accomplishment.
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love this. feel like in my country it would be labeled some kind of 'hazard' because it wasnt contract work and then it will be pulled out again (:
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Hélio da Silva, o plantador de árvores

Looks like his real name (da Silva is the most common surname in Brazil) and nominative determinism: "Sun of the Forest". Silvicultura.

I'm trying to get some trees to grow - it's a lot of work: Hélio has spent huge amounts of time and money on it (average wage might be USD1000/month and article says he was spending 7000 a year and if that was in the past then amount is a lot more in today's dollars).

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Obsessive fanaticism is the key to a life not wasted.
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A similar story to Wendy's Secret Garden in Sydney, Australia?

https://www.wendyssecretgarden.org.au/

After her husband's death in 1992, Wendy Whiteley took to cleaning up an unused railway easement behind her house. It turned into a substantial garden. The railways refused to guarantee its future (it was on their land), but in 2015 it became an official park. Well worth a visit on a sunny afternoon if you are in Sydney.

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There's a children's book that I've been reading to my daughter called The Curious Garden about a boy gardening on abandoned tracks. It's a reference to the High Line, of course, but it's interesting there's more than one like this. I suppose the end of the age of passenger rail in these countries offered opportunities like this.
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I think this is a great story.

For those who aren't aware, that strip of land is probably some of the most valuable residential land on earth.

HK: $200,000+/ sq m (for premium properties on The Peak)

Monoco: $56,000/sq m

Milson's Point (next to Wendy's Secret Garden): $33,000/sq m

Pacific Heights, SF: $22,000/sq m

(According to my/ChattyG's calcs)

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The battle for Wendy's garden will pale into insignificance compared to the battle for a "Sydney Harbour High Line".

https://www.sydneyharbourhighline.org.au/

In 2023 the NSW government committed to turn the adjacent harbourfront railway line into a public linear park. The next government shredded the agreement and has announced it wants housing everywhere. IMO it's prime land that is too valuable to be privately owned and should be publicly accessible. Anyone who disagrees should go for a harbourfront walk on a sunny afternoon. (Billionaires who's takeaway from the experience would be to buy the land for their own use don't count.)

The same battle played out in Cremorne in the 1890's. Today the park is one of Sydney's jewels.

https://www.bonditomanly.com/bondi-to-manly-walk-blog/2020/1...

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There are a few one man army like this.

Dashrath Manjhi is best known for carving a 110-metre-long (360 ft), 9.1-metre-wide (30 ft), and 7.7-metre-deep (25 ft) path through a ridge of hills using only a hammer and a chisel, because his wife fell and died from injuries due to the ridge blocking easy access to a nearby hospital on time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi

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Time of India is such a shit news source that it should be banned from HN.

The ToI article is dated: 2026-08-01

In the article it says:

    > According to Forbes India, in 2003, Helio da Silva...
I Google searched for "Forbes India, in 2003, Helio da Silva" and found the original here: https://www.forbesindia.com/article/lifes/crazy-tree-planter...

Date? 2024-09-30

I guess ToI is having summer interns use LLMs to summarise old newspaper articles to produce more AI slop. Yay.

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Your Forbes India link says "Without any formal authorization, Da Silva started in 2003"
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Typifies the old "you don't plant trees for you but you plant them for those who come after you."
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Love seeing stuff like this
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