A glimpse into natural history and human invasions in southernmost Bahia, Brazil

By Caio Gabrig Turbay

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Leia a matéria em português: https://actaterrae.com.br/as-barreiras-da-costa-pataxo/?preview_id=3805&preview_nonce=d69da02e69&preview=true

Learn more about the natural treasures of the Pataxó Coast and the human impacts in this episode of Uma Pedra no Caminho (audio in Portuguese).

Miocene-Pliocene: between 11 million and 2.5 million years ago.

Memories of the Ice Ages

The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are in full formation. The cooler climate on Earth causes tropical regions to become drier. Much of Brazil’s territory is dominated by savannas. Mighty rivers, catastrophic floods, and deltas deposit the sediments of the Barreiras Group.

Pleistocene: between 120.000 and 18.000 years ago.

The Lost World

The glacial periods intensify, reshaping the Earth’s landscapes. Migratory waves bring humans to the territory of Brazil. The rise in sea levels during brief warm periods on the planet creates erosion fronts over the sediments of the Barreiras Group, forming the cliffs. The savanna persists in much of Brazil, hosting a megafauna of mammals.

End of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene: between 18.000 and 5.000 years ago

The Formation of the Hileia Baiana

The megafauna becomes extinct. The savannas retreat to the interior of Brazil. A connection between the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon rainforest emerges. In Bahia, Amazonian tree species blend with those typical of the Atlantic Forest. The sea level rises progressively, reaching 3 to 5 meters higher than today. The cliffs continue to be sculpted by it.

Recent Holocene: from 5,000 years ago to the present day.

The Invasions

The planet’s climate becomes progressively warmer and milder, while the sea stabilises near its current level. Ancestral nomadic populations adapt to the land, transitioning from hunter-gatherers to settled communities. In the far south of Bahia, the Pataxó, Tupiniquim, and Tupinambá peoples develop unique cultures. In the 16th century, Europeans arrive; in the 20th century, logging companies; and in the 21st century, mass tourism and real estate speculation. The destruction of the land intensifies, fueled by a deforestation culture supported by much of society. Government authorities, through corruption or inefficiency, become complicit in the chaos, while native populations are marginalized. The future remains uncertain.

Located in the far south of Bahia, the Pataxó Coast, known to Brazilian society as the ‘Coast of Discovery,’ is home to a mosaic of conservation units, indigenous lands, and fragments of the Atlantic Forest, some of the most important in Brazil.

The eyes scan the horizon, searching for signs of land. Just a few miles from the coast, the shore is low, and the rare geographical features reveal the proximity of the mainland.

Up close, a firm and continuous strip with ochre tones, covered in forests, begins to take shape: these are the ‘barriers’ that Pero Vaz de Caminha described to the King of Portugal in 1500, during the Portuguese invasion in southern Bahia.

Seen from the beach, the ‘barriers’ are imposing. The steep sedimentary escarpments, about 20 meters high, form an almost impassable wall. It can only be overcome in a few places, where rivers descend from the coastal highlands and meet the sea.

The appearance is unique. The earthy colours in the distance give way to a myriad of multicoloured strata, ranging from white to dark red, with shades of grey, beige, and various browns.

Tribute to the Portuguese Invasion at Barra do Cahy. The importance of Portuguese colonisation in shaping Brazil’s cultural and ethnic identity is widely recognised. However, for a significant portion of the population, particularly within the middle class and economic elite, there remains a social and historical ignorance. These segments of society often exalt European references, neglecting and undervaluing the cultural identities of traditional peoples, who are an essential part of the true diversity and cultural richness of Brazil.

The escarpments of the Barreiras Group display sedimentary strata with striking colour variations, as described by Pero Vaz de Caminha to the King of Portugal. These colours are the result of the action of groundwater over thousands of years, which have bleached some layers and deposited iron oxides, staining others in shades of red and orange.

To the trained eyes of a geologist, the escarpments and their small secrets, written in grains of sand, river pebbles, and fossils, tell a dramatic story from millions of years ago, when the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland were forming. This left this part of the world with a drier, semi-arid climate, dominated by savannas and bizarre animals.

These geological formations are now known in scientific jargon as the ‘Barreiras Group’ or simply ‘Barreiras,’ a set of sediments and rocks formed by rivers, floods, and coastal deltas that deposited sands, gravel, and mud.

After their formation, the Barreiras Group resisted the planet’s natural forces for nearly two and a half million years. At the end of the last Ice Age, about 11.000 years ago, the continued warming of the Earth’s atmosphere caused the polar ice caps and high mountain glaciers to begin melting. As a result, the world’s ocean levels slowly rose, creating marine erosion fronts (the cliffs), which progressively retreated towards the continent.

Unlike the sands of beaches, which undergo erosion and deposition over periods of weeks and months, the sediments of the Barreiras Group (upper part of the photo) were deposited over millions of years. The coastal plateaus of Barreiras, the cliffs, its forests, and natural resources remained preserved until the 20th century, when the second invasion of the territory began, driven by loggers and real estate speculators.

The cliffs are products of marine erosion during periods when sea levels were higher: approximately 120.000 years ago and 5.700 years ago.

The climate changes of the last few thousand years caused the savannas to retreat to the interior of Brazil, while the humid forests advanced southward, creating a connection between the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest. It was precisely in southern Bahia that this connection reached its peak. The ideal climate conditions, soils, and abundance of water allowed for a rich mix of plant species, forming the Baianian Hileia, a unique part of the Atlantic Forest that shares similarities with the Amazon rainforest. On the coastal plateaus of Barreiras, other subtypes of the Atlantic Forest flourished, such as the tabuleiro forest, rich in palms and shrubs, and the Mussununga, an ecosystem similar to the restinga but located at higher altitudes.

Meanwhile, migratory waves brought nomadic peoples to Brazil, through Asia and North America. They settled in the territory, and their culture flourished, adapted to the climatic and environmental changes the planet was undergoing here. If we could go back in time, about 11.000 years ago, we would see the ancestors of the Pataxós—the ethnic group that now lives in the territory—hunting mastodons on the coastal plateaus of Barreiras and trying to protect their children from saber-toothed tigers. Later, around 8.000 years ago, they would harmoniously adapt to the dense forests near the coast, gathering fruits and shellfish, fishing, and, in historical times, building their villages.

This way of life, of respect and adaptation to the land, lasted until five hundred years ago. The Portuguese invasion brought the cross and the sword. The Indigenous peoples, decimated by diseases and the brutality of the white man, entered the 20th century resisting the demands of capitalist society and the territorial pressures of coronelismo, inherited from the hereditary captaincies. After a massacre in the ‘Mother Village,’ near Monte Pascoal, in the 1950s, the Pataxós, the rightful heirs of the land, began their diaspora across southern Bahia.

Despite the five centuries of exploratory cycles by the white invader, the forest regenerates in the places where it was destroyed. The Baianian Hileia remained untouched in the more inaccessible regions.

The second wave of destruction came with BR-101 in the 1970s and 80s. More forest was felled for timber extraction. During this period, families from the Southeast and young people seeking an alternative life, in contact with nature and the sea, arrived in the Porto Seguro region. The new settlers also brought money. The native families, used to living with the little the land provided, suddenly received financial incentives to sell their properties by the sea and in the more desirable areas. A new phase of destruction began: urban expansion and real estate speculation. The outsiders who arrived held the best lands, the prime areas, and the economic power.

The large trees in the pristine forests attest to the diversity of the woodlands and serve as shelter for the fauna that still resists in southern Bahia. Without any control or intervention from government bodies, human action, especially in the last decade, has rapidly devastated and isolated the forest fragments.

In the 1990s and mid-21st century, Porto Seguro and the surrounding region became one of Brazil’s main tourist attractions. Everyone wanted to visit, everyone wanted to live in paradise. The native population was pushed to the peripheries as new subdivisions and neighborhoods were opened—more forest was cleared.

As a result of federal government policies in the 1990s that guaranteed land rights, the Pataxó people returned to living in villages. The Jaqueira village, Aldeia Velha, and many others emerged, restoring the dignity of the rightful heirs to the land. With them, large areas of native vegetation had their survival ensured.

Real estate speculation advanced in the second and third decades of the 21st century. Porto Seguro also became a popular destination for foreigners, bringing more money and business opportunities. Hotels, condominiums, subdivisions, and inns sprang up. Part of the coastline became completely occupied in Arraial D’Ajuda, to the point where the sea was no longer visible. Along the cliffs, the narrow stretch of beach prevents further occupation. But there remains the high coastal plateau, offering a magnificent view.

Real estate speculation is the driving force behind the destruction of natural resources on the Pataxó Coast. Intensified in the last five years, even areas with high geological risk, such as the edges of the cliffs, have not escaped human ignorance and greed.

The outsider, who once brought the sword and the cross, now, mixed into this cultural and ethnic melting pot, brings the opium of cheap entertainment, exhibitionism, and hedonism. A large part of Brazilian society, alienated, is deceived by these values and validates the destruction. The indigenous people, the land, and the forest no longer matter. What matters is money, irrational development. Hotels and subdivisions expand, and the destruction seems endless. Archaeological sites are discovered and destroyed. Few are documented. The heritage of the land is forgotten.

By mid-2025, the search for new lands for construction leaves a trail of destruction and filth. In its track, vacation homes remain empty for most of the year, and a real estate bubble is on the verge of bursting, with scarce sales and the deceptive promise of easy money and happiness in “paradise.”

The future is uncertain. Urban expansion demands water, and here, it is extracted from the land, from the underground water sources of the Barreiras. Water needs the forest to be sustained. The forest needs the soil of Barreiras, the bees, the bats, the animals of the tabuleiro forest, the mussununga, and the Baianian hileia. Climate change has accentuated extreme and catastrophic events. Without the forest, there is no water, no protection from winds and extreme rains. The equation is simple, but few understand, or deliberately pretend not to understand.

It is unacceptable that in just a few decades, greed has destroyed a territory that has developed over millions of years. We must reclaim the distant past and the wisdom of traditional peoples, to perhaps have a future.

The Barreiras Group is the main aquifer and water source for the communities of the Pataxó Coast. Yet, neither the risk of salinization nor the spectre of water scarcity is enough to slow the fury of deforestation driven by real estate speculation.
Learn a little more about the Barreiras Group and the Pataxó Coast in this short video.