Atlantic Forest

The Atlantic Forest, known in Brazil as Mata Atlantica, is a tropical and subtropical forest system running along Brazil's Atlantic coast and reaching into eastern Paraguay and northeastern Argentina, ecologically and geographically distinct from the Amazon rainforest further inland. It is recognized as one of the world's great biodiversity hotspots, carrying extraordinarily high rates of endemism among its plants, birds, amphibians and primates, including species such as the golden lion tamarin found nowhere else on Earth. The forest was also the first part of Brazil encountered by Portuguese colonizers in 1500, and five centuries of settlement, agriculture and urban growth along the coast, including cities such as Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, have reduced it to a small fraction of its original extent, leaving most of what remains fragmented into isolated patches rather than continuous forest. That combination, exceptional biological richness set against severe historical habitat loss, is what makes the Atlantic Forest one of the most conservation-significant forest systems in the world, and restoration and reforestation efforts along the Brazilian coast now specifically target reconnecting its surviving fragments.