Atlantic Forest - Human Impact

Human Impact

Unfortunately, the Atlantic Forest has been facing human-induced threats for decades. Around 70% of Brazil’s 190 million people live along the Atlantic coastline. The incorporation of modern human societies and their needs for forest resources has greatly reduced the size of the Atlantic Forest, which has resulted in species impoverishment. Almost 88% of the original forest habitat has been lost and replaced by human-modified landscapes including pastures, croplands, and urban areas. This deforestation continues at an annual rate of .5% and up to 2.9% in urban areas.

Agriculture: A major portion of human land use in the Atlantic Rain Forest is for agriculture. Crops include sugar-cane, coffee, tea, tobacco and more recently soybean and biofuel crops.

Pasture: Even more common than using land for agriculture is the conversion of forest to cattle pastures. This is commonly done by method of slash and burn which increases a forest chance of human-induced burning.

Hunting: Species in a fragmented forest are more susceptible to decline in population size because they are in an confined area that is more accessible to hunters. Larger animals make up the highest percentage of biomass. These animals are also the most rewarding to hunters and are heavily hunted in accessible fragments. This results in a change in species interactions such as seed dispersal and competition for resources.

Logging: Logging removes 10 to 80% of the canopy cover of a forest making that habitat more susceptible to natural elements such as wind and sunlight. This causes an increase in forest heating and desiccation. Large amounts of organic litter and debris builds up which results in an increase in forests vulnerability to fires. Additionally, logging roads create accessibility for humans; and therefore increases the amount of human land disturbances and decreases the amount of natural forest.

Fire: Human activity such as logging causes an increase in debris along forest floors that makes the Atlantic Forest more susceptible to fires. This is a forest type that is not accustomed to regular fire activity, so human induced fires dramatically affect the forest understory because plants do not have fire adaptations. In result, the forest becomes even more vulnerable to secondary fires, which are far more destructive and kill many more species including large trees.