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Article: The Restoration of a Hotspot Begins. (Mata Atlantica: Endangered Biome).(Brazil's Atlantic Forest)
- Article from:
- World Watch
- Article date:
- November 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Worldwatch Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Brazil's Atlantic Forest is one of the richest biomes on Earth, and one of the most intensively developed. To save it, conservation will have to go on the offensive, and "re-develop" much of the landscape as forest.
To stand in the small, dark reception building at the trailhead, examining its mournful stuffed-animal dioramas--this does not prepare you for the hushed, vegetable exuberance of the forest. Outside, the puma and coati mundi, the birds and assorted snakes all remained invisible to us. But we saw the giant trees enrobed in liana vines, the flowing queues of leaf-cutter ants bearing snippets of green, and the big, white butterflies hovering in the still ...