From the time that Rio de Janeiro was established in 1565 to the mid-19th century, its numerous hillsides, once lush with tropical forests, had been cleared of vegetation for timber and fuel to help grow the burgeoning city. Eventually, nearly all of Rio’s hillsides would be stripped bare forests as coffee and sugarcane plantations took their place. Between 1590 and 1797, for example, the number of cane mills jumped from six to 120 – at the expense of the city’s Atlantic rainforest.
But for all the benefits garnered from deforesting the hillsides in those early days, the destruction was a cause for concern even then. As early as 1658, residents of Rio began to rise in defense of the forests, fearing that the degraded land was impacting the city’s water supply. Still, it wasn’t until 1817 that the city government first issued regulations to protect the few remaining patches of forest.
After a series of droughts in the mid-19th century, it became clear that the forest needed to be revitalized to ensure a clean supply of water. So, in 1860, Emperor Pedro II issued an order to reforest the barren hills of Rio with the native plants that flourished there centuries earlier.
The massive undertaking saw hundreds of thousands of seedlings planted by hand; natural regeneration and municipal regulation helped fill in the rest. Efforts were also made to reintroduce native fauna, thought the forest’s tumultuous 400 year history has yet to recover all of its natural biodiversity. Over the next few decades, the Tijuca Forest gained National Forest status, receiving with it numerous protections and expansions to its boundaries.
Today, Tijuca is the largest urban forest in the world, attracting around 2 million visitors annually. But amid the seemingly unspoiled natural setting in the middle of one of Brazil’s major urban centers, it remains possible to see the hollow shells of ranch houses the young forest has yet to claim entirely.
Still, from the lofty vantage of Tijuca’s Corcovado peak, the forest appears untouched. And among the pilgrims of many creeds gathering around the feet of a giant stone statue of Jesus on a lush green hillside, there exists a glimmer of hope – that even if a forest can’t be saved where deforestation persists, perhaps, in the end we can still be redeemed.
