A Mata Atlântica e a Floresta Amazônica na construção do território brasileiro: Estabelecendo um marco de análise

Abstract

The article attempts at establishing an analytical starting point to analyze comparatively the history of the Atlantic forest and the Amazon forest in the wider context of the building up of Brazilian territory. It is not a matter of analyzing both forest complexes as separate and parallel, but as parts of the same history, since from the beginning of the European colonization both were integrated in the same connected process of land occupation and territorial imagination. At the same time, it is argued that it is necessary to observe the differences in the ways both forest areas were occupied, paying attention to the biophysical differences and the variations, in time, of the rhythm and intensity of deforestation and conservation. A central point is the need to consider the ecological diversity of the spaces in which national territories were built, that is, to think of a history based on spaces ecologically "full" and not on "empty" and abstract maps.