Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic Forest is the second great rainforest of South America, completely separate from the Amazon. It once stretched along the entire eastern coast of Brazil, plus parts of Paraguay and Argentina, covering an area of over a million square kilometres. Today only approx. 12% of the original forest remains, but those scattered patches still contain extraordinary numbers of species, many found nowhere else.
- Original areaapprox. 1.2 million km²Covered the eastern coast of South America
- Remainingapprox. 12%Most of the forest has been cleared
- Main countryBrazilAlso Paraguay and Argentina
- Endemic speciesMany thousandsFound nowhere else in the world
- Famous animalGolden lion tamarinA small bright-orange monkey
- ThreatCity sprawlTwo-thirds of Brazilians live near it
Atlantic Forest vs other rainforests
The Atlantic Forest was once larger than the Sundaland Rainforest, but only a tiny fraction now remains. The surviving fragments are scattered like islands in a sea of farmland and cities.
What is the Atlantic Forest?
The Atlantic Forest (or Mata Atlantica in Portuguese) is a tropical and subtropical rainforest that runs down the eastern side of South America from northern Brazil to Argentina. Unlike the Amazon, which is in the interior, the Atlantic Forest sits along the coast, climbing up the steep coastal mountains and reaching inland in some places. It includes everything from hot lowland rainforest to cooler highland forest and small areas of dry forest.
Why is most of it gone?
The Atlantic Forest had the bad luck to grow exactly where the first European colonists landed in South America. Sugar cane plantations and slave-driven farming destroyed huge areas as early as the 1500s. Coffee farms cleared more in the 1800s. In the 1900s the great cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo grew right on top of the remaining forest. Today around 70% of all Brazilians live in what was once the Atlantic Forest.
What remains is a patchwork of fragments. About 12% of the original cover survives, but most of it is in small, isolated patches separated by farms, roads and cities. Even so, the surviving forest is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.
Wildlife that lives nowhere else
The Atlantic Forest is full of species you cannot see anywhere else. The most famous is the golden lion tamarin, a tiny monkey with a bright orange mane like a lion. There are also the muriqui (the biggest monkey in the Americas), the maned three-toed sloth, the red-tailed parrot and around 200 species of frog, many of them only just discovered.
Bringing the forest back
For decades the story of the Atlantic Forest was one of loss. In recent years it has become a story of restoration. The Pact for the Restoration of the Atlantic Forest, signed in 2009, aims to restore 15 million hectares of forest by 2050. Tree-planting projects, protected corridors connecting forest fragments, and reintroduction of rare animals are all making a difference. Some patches of Atlantic Forest are now growing for the first time in centuries.
Deeper dive: biodiversity hotspots, forest fragmentation and the Atlantic Forest Pact
The Atlantic Forest is one of the world's 36 designated biodiversity hotspots, regions defined as containing at least 1,500 endemic plant species and having lost at least 70% of their original natural vegetation. It contains around 20,000 plant species (8,000 of them endemic), over 260 mammals, 1,000 birds, and at least 350 fish, with new species still being described regularly. By some measures it has more endemic species than the Amazon, despite being a fraction of the size.
The challenge of conserving the Atlantic Forest is one of fragmentation. The surviving forest is broken into roughly 245,000 separate patches, most smaller than 50 hectares. Small isolated fragments lose species over time because populations become too small to be viable and there is no way for animals to move between fragments to find mates or new territory. The conservation strategy now focuses on creating biological corridors, narrow strips of regrown forest that connect existing patches and let wildlife move between them.
The Pact for the Restoration of the Atlantic Forest, signed by over 300 organisations in 2009, is the largest forest restoration commitment on Earth, even bigger than the more famous Amazon restoration plans. By 2030 the Pact aims to have restored 1 million hectares; by 2050, 15 million hectares. Methods include planting native tree seedlings, fencing off areas to let the forest regrow on its own, using "agroforestry" to mix crops with native trees, and removing invasive species. Early results suggest the Pact is on track and that the Atlantic Forest may be growing in total area for the first time in 500 years.
The Amazon is in the same country but completely separate: Amazon Rainforest. The country that hosts most of both is Brazil.