Brazil’s AtlanticForest, or Mata Atlântica, is home to 29critically endangeredvertebrates, and holds theworld’s highest concentration oftree speciesperacre.
Forget champagne, watches and cars: in the next James Bond film, the villain might be found in a Brazilian Atlanticforest hideaway, stroking a long-eared jerboa in a diamond collar.
Drive east and you see the same, an undulent landscape carpeted with buildings completed or under construction, roads thick with traffic, and a few forlorn patches of the original AtlanticForest or more recently transplanted eucalyptus trees to break up the relentless jumble of concrete.