Traditional knowledge of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: environmental history, current status, and policy challenges

Resumo

The history of conservation of the Atlantic Forest is paradoxical. While, on the one hand, it is one of the richest and most important biomes for the conservation of planetary biodiversity, on the other hand, it is one of the world’s biomes most threatened by anthropogenic erosion. In this context, the relations established between traditional human societies and the forest, as well as the ethno-knowledge it produces about biodiversity can be an important foundation for the Atlantic Forest’s conservation. This work aims to summarize aspects of the Atlantic Forest’s environmental history, considering the historic use of the landscape and the multiplicity of uses and traditional knowledge about vegetation from the perspectives of subsistence, economics and cultural heritage. It also addresses aspects of legal protection of this traditional knowledge and presents alternatives, mediated by environmental health and landscape ecology, for the conservation of the Atlantic Forest’s biodiversity in the face of the expansion of urban areas.