Qualla: Atlantic Forest

Atlantic Forest: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Ilosuna assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. When the Portuguese made landfall on a Brazilian beach on April 22, 1500, they walked straight into the Atlantic Forest. Back then it covered something on the order of one million square kilometers - a green wall stretching from what is now Rio Grande do Norte down to Rio Grande do Sul, and westward far enough to reach Paraguay and the Argentine province of Misiones. It was the second-largest rainforest on the planet, trailing only the Amazon. It was also the first place European colonists altered in the New World, and the pattern they established there five centuries ago has continued ever since. Today, roughly 88 percent of the original Atlantic Forest is gone. Nearly 250 species of amphibians, birds, and mammals have vanished in the past four hundred years. And yet the forest that remains is still one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth.

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Ilosuna assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Atlantic Forest: Many Forests in One

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Canale, G. R.; Peres, C. A.; Guidorizzi, C. E.; Gatto, C. A. F.; Kierulff, M. C. L. M., CC BY 2.5. The Atlantic Forest is not a single forest. It is a mosaic of habitats glued together by geography and moisture gradients. On stabilized coastal dunes, restinga forests grow low and dense. Inland, tropical moist forests climb into submontane and montane zones, their canopies drip...

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Image: Canale, G. R.; Peres, C. A.; Guidorizzi, C. E.; Gatto, C. A. F.; Kierulff, M. C. L. M. | CC BY 2.5

Atlantic Forest: A Biodiversity Hotspot

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ian Storni Machado, CC BY-SA 4.0. Approximately 40 percent of the Atlantic Forest's vascular plants and up to 60 percent of its vertebrates are endemic - they exist nowhere else on Earth. Biologists have cataloged over 3,000 tree species, 98 bat species, 94 medium-to-large mammal species, over 2,000 epiphytes, 26...

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Image: Ian Storni Machado | CC BY-SA 4.0

Atlantic Forest: Indigenous Hands Shaped the Forest

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Souza Lima, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Atlantic Forest that Portuguese colonists encountered was not pristine. Researchers now estimate that Indigenous land management had shaped 60 to 80 percent of the forest landscape by 1500. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, trans...

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Image: Daniel Souza Lima | CC BY-SA 3.0

Atlantic Forest: The Tamarin That Sparked a Movement

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Vulcansalute, CC BY 4.0. The golden lion tamarin is a small primate with a face framed by a fiery red-gold mane. By 1970 it was on the edge of disappearing. A few hundred individuals remained in fragmented patches of forest near Rio de Janeiro. The tamarin's plight sparked international attention, and co...

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Image: Vulcansalute | CC BY 4.0

Atlantic Forest: What Comes Next

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Leonardo Brito Uniemelk 23:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC), CC BY 3.0. Today about 28 percent of native vegetation cover remains. Deforestation continues at roughly 0.5 percent a year, higher in urban areas. Agricultural conversion leads the pressure - sugarcane, coffee, tobacco, soybeans, biofuel crops - followed by logging and hunting. When a fore...

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Image: Leonardo Brito Uniemelk 23:05, 27 January 2008 (UTC) | CC BY 3.0