The Garden in the Machine: An Environmental History of Brazil's Tijuca Forest

Abstract

Rio de Janeiro is one of the world's twenty largest cities and is among the world's fastest-growing urban areas. Within the city is a vast and lush forested area that soothes the landscape, freshens the air, moderates the temperature, controls runoff, provides leisure and recreation, and once supplied the city's drinking water. The sprawling city and its wider metropolitan area encircle this area, of which the Tijuca Forest is the most important section. Tijuca is the largest replanted tropical forest in the world, a fact that attracts visitors from around the globe. But most Rio residents take the Tijuca Forest for granted, thinking that the forest has always been there or that it is one of several second-growth formations found in the hills and mountains around the city. Contrary to local opinion, though, the Tijuca Forest resulted from deliberate, long-range, and successful government reclamation and conservation policies. From i844 to the present, national and local government agencies enacted laws, regulations, and management plans to preserve the remains of the original forest, replant its ravaged sections, manage its streams for the city's water supply, and, more recently, establish it as a sanctuary for nature lovers, sightseeing, leisure, recreation, field research, and outdoor education. The Tijuca Forest is a replanted tropical forest resulting from a pioneering, century-long experience in multi-species reforestation, forest and watershed management, and urban planning; it is also part of a national park. Although most Brazilian national parks follow internationally established parameters for protecting natural landscapes of exceptional scenic or ecological value, the Tijuca National Park, located inside Rio's city limits, is an exception. Since government policies have been intermittent and sometimes badly articulated, current Tijuca Forest managers consider the area to be in a state of natural regeneration. Pressures that once demanded reclamation policies continue to account for serious problems. The chaotic, modernized, and rapidly growing Third World metropolis places severe strains on the replanted forest and national park located in its midst. Tijuca Forest represents the unique feat of planting a garden inside a machine, reestablishing a tropical forest inside a major city.' The strains upon it today lead to a