The Atlantic Forest Ecological History: From Pre-colonial Times to the Anthropocene

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest has a long history of human interaction and transformation, since as early as the Late Pleistocene. Throughout the centuries, native populations coevolved with their environment, at the same time that always exerted some degree of pressure on the system. The early human interactions may have contributed to the extinction of megafauna, coupled with climate becoming warmer and humid. In a second moment, more modern native populations developed slash-and-burn agriculture, leaving a distinct mark in the landscape, altering forest structure and composition. Up to this point, human interaction, although leaving a footprint, left intact a large portion of forest cover. With the implementation of the Portuguese colonial enterprise, in less than 500 years, much of the Atlantic Forest was transformed into a non-forest matrix. This dramatic spatial reorganization was mainly driven by large plantation systems, particularly sugarcane and coffee, intermixed with the introduction of large grazing mammals, converting forest into pastures using exotic African grasses. With urbanization and industrialization, energy demand leads to the transformation of large forest tracts into charcoal, up until the mid-twentieth century. The Anthropocene accelerated deforestation processes with growing urbanization and industrialization until the late twentieth century with the birth of modern conservation movements that have helped diminish deforestation rates.