Mata Atlântica Biosphere Reserve

UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, inscribed 1993, in Brazil. The Atlantic Forest is one of the seven moist forest areas of the Neotropics and the second largest after the Amazonian rain forest. It covers around 90,000 km² along 3,000 km of the Atlantic coast, spanning 17 different Brazilian states. Although the remaining Atlantic Forest, about 10 per cent of the original vegetation, is rather homogeneous, the social diversity is very high. It includes large urban centres, including Rio de Janeiro, Florianópolis and São Paulo, as well as many small traditional communities, small-scale fishers and forest extractive groups.