In Brazil, an island laboratory for Atlantic Forest restoration

ANCHIETA ISLAND, Brazil – From a distance, Anchieta Island is a mosaic of different shades of green. The lighter ones correspond to areas where ferns and a handful of broad-range species reign. In the darker patches, shrubs and trees have taken the place of the ferns. This verdant patchwork is a picture of some of the different stages a degraded area goes through as it spontaneously restores its biodiversity. Biologists call this process “ecological succession,” and Anchieta has been experiencing it for several decades, since the island became a protected area and its devastated forests were left unbothered. But lack of biodiversity is not the same as lack of life. Anchieta Island has the highest density of mammals in all the Atlantic Forest, the highly threatened biome that covers much of the Brazilian coast. The reason for this unusual concentration of large animals is that 35 years ago, 95 mammals from 14 different species were released onto the island to try to repopulate it. “The animals that were introduced in the island all have high reproductive rates. There were too many of them in the zoo of São Paulo, which seems to be one of the reasons why they were released here,” says Mauro Galetti, an ecologist from São Paulo State University, who’s been studying the biodiversity of the island for more than 20 years. A rufous-collared sparrow in Anchieta. Photo by Ignacio Amigo/Mongabay. The introduction of the animals was made without any scientific overview whatsoever. And while some of…

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