Bus Journeys Through the Mata Atlantica

Scalped and flayed, torrents of pink blood erode gaping wounds exposing geological bones as tears fall from a sombre sky. Sterile grassy hillsides and naked soil are sad substitutes for one of the planet’s most spell-binding forests. In 1832, this spectacular forest had captivated Charles Darwin. If he had visited today, perhaps his work on evolution may have taken rather longer.

The demise of the once great Atlantic Rainforest (or Mata Atlantica as it is called here) is an environmental and human tragedy. Once one of the world’s most ecologically rich forests covered nearly 1.5 million square kilometres of the eastern side of tropical and sub-tropical South America, today it covers just 10,000 square kilometres – sounds a lot, but most of this is highly fragmented, consisting of tiny, disconnected patches and is worth in total only a few per cent of the original. Yet, even these scant fragments retain some of the richest life on earth.

The orgy of forest destruction kicked off in the 19^th century, long before a global environmental consciousness might have mitigated some of the damage, and continued well into the 20th century, particularly in south-east Brazil in the Rio de Janeiro/ Soa Paulo region, as urban development went crazy (and through which I am currently travelling). Within a human life-time, a slave-subsidised economy had erased  much of a verdant forest – animals, plants and people – to enable short-sighted coffee and sugar cane plantations and cattle ranches. Short-lived soil fertility soon meant coffee could not be grown, and the end of slavery ended a false economy founded on servitude. Grass then covered the land for thousands of square kilometres to enable cattle ranching. Much of this grass is of African origin, introduced either deliberately for pasture, or accidently as the bedding for the slave ships that was disposed of as a foetid mess when these tragic vessels docked in the New World. Today, the soil is kept artificially fertile with chemicals, but these don’t stop it eroding in the rain. Red soil, instead of green grass, now dominates the colour scheme of many hills, while many small farmers are caught in a low-value, cattle-farming poverty trap.

There was once a forest here that stimulated the mind of no lesser a man than Charles Darwin

Although this is supremely depressing, there are people working hard to reverse this historic destruction. I am taking a series of bus journeys through this utterly changed landscape,to explore three different projects trying to restore and create a more sustainable forest-based economy from the remnants of the Mata Atlantica.

My taxi driver taking me to the Rodoviario Novo Rio (Rio's main bus terminal) is very chatty and, inspiringly, has learned his English in his taxi while waiting for the likes of me. He looks like a less pretty version of Belgian action film star, Jean-Claude van Damme and, like all taxi drivers everywhere, he offers unsolicited insight on politics, philosophy and women and, like all taxi drivers, he fleeces the gullible Englishman. However, he does offer me some sound advice on how not to get mugged in Rio’s enormous main bus station, making me even more paranoid than normal.

My destination is only 80 km north of Rio, but it takes nearly five hours through traffic hell – apparently it’s a public holiday weekend and everyone is leaving the city. Still, it’s a sunny day and it provides a good opportunity to examine my unfolding surroundings as we leave the city and enter the countryside.

Favela street

Brazil's favelas (slums) are populated mainly by migrants from the countryside looking for better lives in the cities – particularly in the economic power houses of Sao Paulo and Rio. I am surprised how extensive they are, extending along the road for tens of kilometres. The rivers that our line of traffic are crawling over are black, full of rubbish and probably stinking. The houses are of one colour – that of the undecorated terracota bricks used to build them. Some seem to be permanently incomplete with holes where windows should be and plastic sheeting for roofing. On hillsides in particular, they are crammed together like sardine cans on a supermarket shelf.

 
Crawling further north, agriculture begins to dominate and the rivers become gradually cleaner. There is cattle ranching, and increasingly forested hills are starting to gain my attention. It is in their direction that I am heading.

Through the bus window

An eight-hour bus journey a few days later takes me from Rio to Sao Paulo through the most populated and industrialised part of a country the size of Europe, in an area once clothed in dense rainforest that literally held the landscape together. Today, from the road, river banks are stabilised by hideous heavy engineering – concrete, gabions, geometric terracing and linear drainage channels - instead of trees. In many areas gulley erosion threaten to turn the landscape into a red badlands. The rivers flow strongly with the colour of weak hot chocolate, laden with the soil that should be better on the land. For many miles of linear commercial and industrial developments along the road, there is not a tree to be seen. My gloom is worsened by the heavy rain that has been pouring all day; condensation on the windows makes it even more difficult for me to see the views. My cheap lunch of biscuits and a can of guarana (a fizzy drink flavoured with a Brazilian fruit) does nothing to raise my spirits. And then we get stuck in a two-hour traffic jam on entry to, apparently, the third biggest city in the world – Sao Paulo. Depression, misery, gloom.

My next blog posting will describe the uplifting projects that I visited during this period, so try not to get too depressed!