🦜 Filling an ‘empty’ forest

When visitors see the lush green expanse of Tijuca National Park, with blankets of trees draped over the hills of the southwestern portion of Rio de Janeiro city, they would be forgiven for believing that the vegetation that makes up the world’s largest urban forest has been around for thousands (if not millions) of years.

In actual fact, less than 200 years ago, the hills that now make up the park were largely devoid of green, having been decimated for coffee and charcoal production. It was Emperor Pedro II who, seeing his imperial capital suffering from a lack of water, ordered the massif’s reforestation. Under the command of one of the emperor’s majors, a group of 11 enslaved people planted more than 100,000 seedlings of native plant species over the space of 13 years.

Speaking to The Brazilian Report, Viviane Lasmar, director of Tijuca National Park, described the park as a “living laboratory of the relationship between city and forest over centuries.” She pointed to a recent study concluding that only 5.2% of the park’s current area was actually replanted, meaning that the vegetation we see today is largely regenerated from those small cores of reforesting.

“It’s neither completely pristine, nor is it totally replanted,” she explained. “The green exuberance that enchants our visitors is the result of a pioneering ecological restoration experiment.”

But despite its plentiful vegetation, the Tijuca National Park is a forest in desperate need of treatment. While the final years of the Brazilian empire brought back the region’s trees, its animal species are still lacking. Studies show that, of the 33 medium and large vertebrate species that should inhabit the park, only 11 remain. But that is gradually changing….

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