The Atlantic Forest

You have certainly heard about the Amazon – the world’s largest, oldest and most biodiverse rainforest. But did you know that South America is also home to a second major rainforest?

It’s called the Atlantic Forest and stretches along eastern South America. More than 60% of all Brazilians live within this biome. The forest provides clean water and air, food, building materials, medicine and leisure, preventing landslides and flooding.

Despite this amazing diversity and potential for scientific discoveries, the Atlantic Forest is one of the world’s most degraded and threatened biomes. In 2008, less than 8% remained – in highly fragmented and disconnected forest patches.

And although the remaining forest is now formally protected under the Atlantic Forest Act, in reality deforestation is still ongoing – mainly driven by agriculture and urbanisation.

But there is hope. Several organisations are now working against the clock to protect what is left, and restore what is gone. This vital work is helping Brazil achieve its national and international commitments to climate mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

A recent effort is being led by the Atlantic Forest Research and Conservation Alliance (ARAÇÁ), whose mission is to understand and protect the Atlantic Forest through world-class research, conservation and training.

To help deliver this mission, the Brazilian nonprofit behind ARAÇÁ has built a world-class field station in a permanently protected reserve (Alto da Figueira) in the heart of Rio de Janeiro’s largest rainforest remnant.

The team’s goal is to promote in-depth and long-term studies on biodiversity, ecological interactions, carbon dynamics, climate change impacts, and more. The aspiration is to become the best-studied site in the Atlantic Forest.

One particular study aims to understand everything we can about one tree, as part of the large “Life on Trees” collaboration. Scaffolds are now in place and fundraising underway to set up a permanent Tree Observation Platform!

The insights being produced are mind-blowing. For example, virtually every fly we are finding up in the tree canopy – and we are finding hundreds or possibly thousands of them – seems to be unknown to science.

But research isn’t the end goal. Through learning what "good" looks like – how many and which species are required to sustain a healthy and resilient forest – ARAÇÁ’s researchers are now trying to transfer that knowledge to improve restoration efforts.

By combining traditional survey methods with new technologies – from 3D laser scans to audio recorders and machine learning – the data produced is helping identify priority areas for conservation that maximise biodiversity recovery and carbon storage.

Don’t worry if you hadn’t heard about the Atlantic Forest before. Now you have! 


The key thing is: we need the Atlantic Forest, and the Atlantic Forest needs us.