The Mata Atlântica once ran the length of the Brazilian coast, a rainforest as rich as the Amazon and, in some measures of endemism, richer. It is also where the Portuguese landed, where the sugar and coffee plantations went, and where the cities grew, and today something like twelve percent of it remains, in fragments, surrounded by the most populous part of South America.
What is left is astonishing. The golden lion tamarin, down to a few hundred animals, has been brought back through captive breeding and the replanting of forest corridors between fragments, and it survives. Muriquis, the largest primates in the Americas, hold on in patches. The forest supplies water to São Paulo and Rio, and when it is cut the reservoirs run low, which is the argument that finally got politicians to listen.
The organizations here replant corridors to stitch the fragments into something a monkey can cross, defend the remaining forest, and press a restoration agenda of remarkable ambition. The Atlantic Forest is the great test of whether a shattered biome can be reassembled.
Environmental Organizations in This Bioregion
16 organizations working across this landscape.
Associação Ambientalista Copaíba
Conserve and restore the Atlantic Forest of the Peixe and Camanducaia river basins.
Associação Comunitária Monte Azul
Monte Azul Community Association is a non-governmental organization guided by anthroposophical thinking, primarily focused on the holistic development of the hum...
Atlantic Rainforest Institution
Saving standing primary Atlantic Rainforest in the South of Bahia Brazil. Agro-Ecology Education, focusing on reforestation with children. Biodiversity!!!
Filha do Sol
Filha do Sol regenerates Nature with tropical communities.
Instituto Ecomar
We turn marine pollution into innovating new products!
Instituto Terra
More than 26 years ago, Lélia Wanick and Sebastião Salgado had a dream: to bring a devastated land back to life. They turned this dream into reality.
Instituto Terra Luminous
Terra Luminous (ITL) is a socio-environmental institute, a Brazilian NGO dedicated to protect and regenerate the Atlantic Rainforest.
Iracambi Rainforest Research and Conservation Center
Iracambi restores the Atlantic Forest through ecological restoration, environmental education, research, and community engagement.
Movimento Refloresta
Creating a new generation of Amazon rainforest activists by connecting youth from all over the World with youth from the Amazon.
Outward Bound Brasil
Outward Bound Brasil develops resilient, ethical, and climate-conscious citizens through immersive outdoor education and real-world challenges in nature.
Sea Shepherd Brasil
Sea Shepherd is a non-profit marine conservation organization that engages in direct action campaigns to defend wildlife and to conserve and protect the ocean
SOS Mata Atlantica Foundation
To inspire society to protect the Atlantic Forest.
The Un-Endangered Forest Project
The Un-Endangered Forest Project aims to return tree species to the Atlantic Forest by distributing seedlings of endangered species overlogged in the past.