From NASA Earth Observatory:
Several hundred years ago, a wide swath of tropical forest stretched along Brazil’s Atlantic Coast for thousands of miles. Like the Amazon rainforest to its northwest, the Mata Atlântica, or Atlantic Forest, was a hotspot of biodiversity and home to thousands of plant and animals species found nowhere else on Earth.
These days, just slivers of that ancient forest remain. With about three quarters of Brazil’s population living along the Atlantic coast, a fragmented patchwork of undisturbed forest stands alongside a mosaic of farmland, pastureland, cities, and roads. Estimates vary, but satellite-based surveys show that about 10 to 15 percent of the original Atlantic Forest is left.
Lélia and Sebastião set up a non-profit reforestation organization called Instituto Terra and started planting trees in 1999. Twenty years later, the organization has planted more than 4 million seedlings across the 1,754-acre (7-square kilometer) property once known as Bulcão Farm. Eroded, bare hillsides have been replaced by forests, and many of the plant and animal species that had gone missing have returned. Several streams that had gone dry have also started to flow again, according to Instituto Terra.