The Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) is a moist broadleaf forest extending along Brazil’s Atlantic coast from Rio Grande do Norte in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul in the south, reaching inland into eastern Paraguay and Argentina’s Misiones Province.
Once covering between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 square kilometres, the Atlantic Forest was the second largest rainforest on Earth when Portuguese colonists first encountered it over 500 years ago. Today more than 85 per cent of the original forest has been cleared, yet what remains supports extraordinary biodiversity and endemism across a mosaic of seasonal moist and dry forests, grasslands, savannas and coastal mangroves. The scale of loss places hundreds of plant and animal species unique to the biome under severe threat. Its fragmented remnants represent one of the most critical conservation priorities in South America, harbouring species found nowhere else while facing relentless pressure from agriculture, urbanisation and development along one of the continent’s most densely populated coastlines.
