Summary

The European conquistadors found a very different version of nature in tropical America. Colonization was possible only with the collaboration of the native peoples, who ensured the survival of the colonizers in this strange environment. In addition to sharing their food culture, the indigenous people showed them not only forest resources that were useful for building, navigation, and defense but also species with commercial value that would provide a payoff for the effort of European expansion, such as brazilwood (Paubrasilia) and other hardwood species (madeiras-de-lei). They also shared their agricultural techniques, which were subsequently used in commercial monocultures. As a result, the Atlantic Forest would become the ecological foundation for colonization; however, the vision of the forest as an open frontier with inexhaustible resources defined modes of exploration devoid of any environmental prudence. The expansion of the sugar mills, and a corresponding increase in the scale of slash-and-burn agriculture, caused so much degradation to the forests that political management of forest spaces by the authorities became necessary. This was intensified by the fact that both slash-and-burn farming and selective logging were viable in the same forest areas, where it was also possible to transport production via waterways. At the turn of the 19th century, the perception that the reckless and irrational exploitation of nature was compromising hardwood use instigated a debate on more rational ways of using the forest but without changing the old shortsighted and destructive practices. Nevertheless, the degradation that the Atlantic Forest experienced in the colonial period was limited to specific geographic zones with the strongest plantation, mining, and logging dynamics, and deforestation did not exceed one tenth of the total forest area.