Brazil’s highland forest has been shaped by climate change, Indigenous people for 6,000 years

LINCOLN (UK): (Jul 13) When you think of a South American rainforest, you probably don’t imagine biting winds, heavy frosts and freezing temperatures. But in the mountains of southern Brazil, that’s exactly what you can find. On this highland plateau, far from Amazonia in the country’s coldest region, grows one of the world’s most intriguing ecosystems.

For millions of years, this region has been home to a biodiverse patchwork of Araucaria forests and campos grasslands. The Araucaria trees which characterise this region are closely related to the monkey puzzle trees widely cultivated in Britain, and their relatives once fed dinosaurs around the world. In the present, though, this landscape is in trouble — 150 years of logging and agricultural expansion has destroyed most of the forest-grassland mosaic, and the cool, wet conditions it needs are now rapidly disappearing.

Lessons from the past can help us conserve this ancient ecosystem. Rolling back the centuries with an international team, my recent research uncovered the unexpected ways in which humans and climate changes combined to shape Brazil’s Araucaria forests over the last 6,000 years. Far from being inherently destructive, they were critical in forming the ecosystem’s character.

Source: PTI News

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