EARTH

7 Guanabara bay,
a look at
a history

A living witness to our history, Guanabara Bay holds relics dating back thousands of years. The discovery of archeological sites near its banks indicates that these waters may have been used by prehistoric people – known as “sambaquis” (“midden”) people. [1] At these sites, the fossils of small marsupial mammals, terrestrial mollusks, birds and reptiles have been identified, as well as chipped stones and ceramics, which tell us a little of this history.

Outras pesquisas Other research carried out by geographers and geologists concluded that, thousands of years ago, the sea level was around 130 meters below its current level. [2] At this time, therefore, on a large part of the currently submerged continental shelf, there used to be areas of restinga (sandy coastal vegetation), cliffs and dunes, which were home to exuberant megafauna such as mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, giant armadillos, and sloths as much as six meters long. [3] The cause of these animals’ disappearance is still uncertain: there may have been a shortage of food arising from the last ice age, or they may not have survived the rising waters of the Atlantic Ocean throughout the continental shelf’s coastal zone. At any rate, it is known that it was this flooding event, around 12,00 years ago, that gave rise to Guanabara Bay. [4]

However, numerous changes to the bay’s initial outline were successively brought about by weather and environmental events, accompanied by successive alterations in sea level, until it finally took the shape found by the first Portuguese settlers who arrived here in 1502. [5] We were already in the modern age, and the Europeans were concerned to keep records of their discoveries. Since then, it has been easier to reconstitute the bay’s history. Drawings, maps, texts and paintings produced by the colonizers have facilitated the work of historians who have reconstituted its trajectory over the last five centuries, recording the transformations it has continued to go through.

The current bay is very different to that one of clear waters, shaped and adorned with little coves, beaches and mangroves, set against a backdrop of dense tropical forest: a vision of blissful paradise for the Portuguese navigators who saw it for the first time. They were travelers who, following the orders of King Manuel I, the Fortunate, had undertaken a mission to explore the Brazilian coast nearly two years after the land’s discovery. When they entered the bay, flanked by splendid granite mountains, they believed they were at the mouth of a great river. As it was January 1, they named the area “Rio de Janeiro” (“River of January”).

After getting over their disappointment at not having found an arm of the sea they had been looking for to reach the Pacific Ocean and from there the Orient, they soon realized they were in a very lush place, unlike anything they had seen before. From then on, travelers from across the world did not tire of celebrating the beauty of that virgin paradise of clear waters, full of fish. The open sea and bay dotted with islands and islets, beautiful beaches, and exuberant tropical flora and fauna helped to make up a landscape that to Europeans at that time was redolent of the Garden of Eden.

An imposing mountain range covered in dense tropical forest dominated the landscape, skirting the Atlantic Ocean. Between the sea and the mountains, there were small hills dotted around, surrounded by marshes, lagoons and mangroves. There were gigantic trees, orchids, huge butterflies and a lot of water: in the sea, bay, lagoons, rivers and waterfalls. Here and there, the dense green cloak of jungle seemed to want to touch the sky by means of the tops of palm trees emerging from the ocean of leaves.

The vibrant tones and intoxicating perfume of flowers and fruits lent more liveliness to the mysterious nature. The diversity of vegetation typical of regions with a hot and humid climate enchanted travelers, who were used to the difficulties of European winter and cold. People’s attention was scattered by the kaleidoscopic vision of colors and shapes: water lilies that floated placidly in lagoons; pineapple, pitanga and cashew fruit trees that miraculously flourished in sandy coastal areas; leafy jabuticaba trees replete with a kind of very sweet black cherry; and even bromeliads that sprouted on “itaporapuãs”, the name given by indigenous people to the large round boulders that cropped up unexpectedly in the middle of forests, waters and sands.

Parrots, toucans, herons, macaws and scarlet ibises flew in large flocks, painting the sky in countless colors. Felines and other small mammals – jaguars, collared peccaries, capybaras, pacas, tapirs, deer, monkeys and marmosets – approached calmly, without fear, to drink the clear waters that came down from the mountains, through the virgin jungle, in which acacia, jequitibá, cecropia, ipê and purple glory trees stood out due to their colors.


In the winter months, groups of dozens of whales could be seen, gently gliding through the bay’s waters, after crossing the bay entrance in search of warmer coastal waters in which to give birth.

Large shoals of sardines, corvina, common snook, mullets, horse-eye jack and other fish that lived in the bay enticed groups of dolphins into the middle of it, to the vicinity of the island of Paquetá, in search of food. In the winter months, groups of dozens of whales could be seen, gently gliding through the bay’s waters, after crossing the bay entrance in search of warmer coastal waters in which to give birth. The beaches and mangroves were home to many shrimp, crabs, mussels, oysters, yellow clams, wedge shells and cockles. [6]

The first reports written by travelers who came here in the 16th century describe – in generally superlative language – the heavenly natural environment that extended throughout the Brazilian coast, where there lived, in perfect harmony with nature, an indigenous population that was very homogenous in terms of language and culture: the great Tupi-Guarani nation.

This would perhaps still be the situation today, if the Europeans had not come to Brazil and if the Tupi-Guarani people had continued to inhabit the bay’s islands and shore, keeping it preserved and guaranteeing that its wild beauty remained virtually untouched. The historical process was inexorable, however. The recently discovered land was settled, in line with the standards of the time, inevitably. As in any other part of the world, it was up to colonizers to take advantage of the wealth of discovered lands.

In Brazil,, as in many other colonies, extraction of natural resources was the economic model adopted in the first centuries under Portuguese rule. The extraction of brazilwood (“pau-brasil”) to make dyes and whaling (all the parts of whales’ bodies could be used, for many purposes, ranging from food to construction) were commonplace activities. Furthermore, the Europeans deemed it necessary to subdue the local nature, which although stunning, was extremely threatening, posing numerous dangers and discomforts: enemy Indians, fierce and poisonous animals, frightening storms, scorching heat, and annoying insects that transmitted unknown tropical diseases.

A little more than five centuries later, the schools of whales and dolphins that used to gently glide through the bay have vanished. Of the indigenous tribes that lived along its banks, there are now only reports, a few middens and the original Tupi-Guarani names that continue to identify the geographical features and places along its shores, starting with its own name, Guanabara, or “bosom of the sea”, and including Niterói, Jurujuba, Icaraí, Itapuca and its many dozens of islands, such as Jurubaíba, Paquetá and Brocoió. [7]

The expansion of Brazilian cities followed a pattern of urbanization similar to that of nearly all countries under colonial rule. Notwithstanding an increase in the population of the original inhabitants, the indigenous people, for a long time the colony experienced modest foreign population growth, dispersed across small villages along the coast and inland mining settlements.

The Portuguese population rose slowly in the region around the bay, but the population made up of black slaves brought from Africa increased ever more dramatically. The figures for Rio de Janeiro show that, between the 17th and 19th centuries, residents of African origin far surpassed those of European origin, although the city’s population was still modest when compared with the average population of European urban centers. The situation remained the same until the last quarter of the 19th century, when several laws culminating in the abolition of slavery in 1888 and encouraging immigration caused a veritable population explosion in Brazilian cities, especially Rio de Janeiro. [8]

Soon after the abolition of slavery, an enormous group of people became expendable and started to migrate from rural areas to urban centers, seeking new job opportunities. The main centers, although they already had some infrastructure services, were completely unprepared to accommodate this continuous flow of people. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, its population rose from close to 50,000 at the end of the 18th century to around 500,000 inhabitants in the mid-19th century and nearly 1 million at the start of the 20th century.

This process further intensified in the 1930s, with the start of industrialization, and grew even stronger in the 1950s, when the country definitively adopted a growth model based on industrial rather than agricultural development. The previous relationship between the countryside and cities became reversed, as the urban population surpassed the rural population. Cities, especially the largest ones, found themselves occupied by immense pockets of poverty. The new inhabitants, in the absence of alternatives, occupied areas considered risky and/or unhealthy, such as unstable slopes, the banks of rivers and flood plains.

One way or another, over the course of 500 years we have seen a slow but continuous process of land use and occupation, as if natural resources were infinite and all that abundance were eternal. Whole forests have been almost completely wiped out, like the Atlantic Forest, water systems have been altered, mountains have been flattened, mangroves and shorelines have been drained and extended, rivers have been canalized, and waste has been discharged into water bodies (such as lakes, lagoons and beaches). All this has had a predatory influence on nature, showing contempt for the characteristics of original sites and failing to take into account the importance of preserving their natural resources.

But could history have taken a different course? Could humans, who throughout this time considered themselves to be at the center of the world, intoxicated by their capacity to expand their territorial conquests and accumulate wealth, have changed direction or been replaced by another being, more concerned with the Universe’s harmony? Did people still not realize that the nature they were using to progress, adjusting it to their vision of the world, was in fact a complex, fragile and diversified system whose balance, when irremediably broken, could result in huge losses for productive systems and, above all, serious threats to their own survival?

Dominating humankind imposed itself on nature, but it is important to remember that, despite being confined to small groups of scientists and scholars, some issues related to environmental imbalances have been studied for centuries. Theophrastus of Eresus, who died in 287 BC, the immediate successor to Aristotle, is believed to be the first person to be concerned about ecology, although this word was only used around 1,600 years later. It was he who first described the relationships between organisms and with their environment.

Many centuries later, new studies were conducted. In the 17th century, for example, people undertook important research into how species succession occurs after vegetation is burned. Following many studies carried out across the world, there gradually emerged the idea that there do not exist separate communities of plants and animals, but rather that all of them form, in an integrated manner, a unique and singular living system. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was only in 1866 that the term ecology was finally coined by German naturalist Ernst H. Haeckel to designate the “science of interactions”, a concept that many years later was expanded to the “science that studies the relationships between living beings and with the environment” or the “sociology of nature.” [9]

The main centers, although they already had some infrastructure services, were completely unprepared to accommodate this continuous flow of people. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, its population rose from close to 50,000 at the end of the 18th century to around 500,000 inhabitants in the mid-19th century and nearly 1 million at the start of the 20th century.


Much later, however, only in the second half of the 20th century, the topic of ecology entered the public domain and joined the list of concerns in almost all countries. And this only happened because, associated with the highly desired progress of civilization brought about by technological advances, the intense industrialization process and the advantages of the urbanized world, clear signs of environmental imbalances started to be perceived, whose damage, going beyond political and territorial boundaries, affected whole regions until taking on global proportions. [10]

It was in this context, at the time still very nascent, that the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in 1972 in Stockholm, Sweden. Bringing together representatives of all countries, the summit managed to draw attention to the risks the planet would face if environmental issues were not made a priority, not just by political leaders but together, throughout society.

This initiative had almost immediate results. Many topics, such as atmospheric pollution, acid rain, climate change, the desertification process, contamination of rivers and oceans, and the nuclear threat, previously only discussed by a minority, now started to appear prominently in the media, at universities and in protests by environmental groups. From this point on, issues related to the environment expanded to everyday discussions, becoming ever present in modern life and forming part of politics and government issues, such as electoral platforms and public policies.

Having recalled this long history, we should return our attention to Guanabara Bay, striving to perceive everything from the movement of its waters to its nuances of color. If we observe it very calmly, we may notice a slight ripple on the surface of its waters, indicating the proximity of a school of fish. With luck, we may see flocks of birds flying over the region, looking for fish to feed on. Looking along the banks, we can imagine what it must have been like in the past, occupied in turn by Indian huts, fortresses, colonial villages and so on, until arriving at the megalopolis in which we live today.

Yes, it is worthwhile devoting attention to Guanabara Bay. Despite having suffered numerous attacks arising from the process of colonization and urbanization begun in the 16th century, it bravely resists. Still maintaining its majesty, it manages to be generous enough to perform its role of hosting Brazil’s second most important port – a motor of economic activities generating work and income for the state’s people. Remaining alive, it carries out its function of breeding marine fauna and flora, providing a livelihood for many families of fishermen that live along its shores. It also democratically offers some corners of its landscape to anyone who wants to rest in the shade of a tree or sunbathe on its beaches.

There are many factors that make Guanabara Bay much more than a mere geographical feature with which we live in an indifferent manner, not noticing that it, as a living, breathing body, is getting sick, slowing losing its charm, and it may wither away.

It is important to learn more about this place, relive its history, and understand how the mechanisms by which nature functions are complex and fascinating, because this place, this history and this environment determine the lives and future of the people who live and work there. The bay reflects the living conditions of the society around it. Fighting for it to become bright, luminous and full of life once more therefore means investing in our tomorrow.

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