The Forest Question in the History of the Island of Santa Catarina

The end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th, witnessed a process of intensive changes on the island of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Period of recognition of the economic and environmental potentialities of the site and of the occupation and consolidation of European colonization which started half century before, it is also in this period that the island's population imposed a new rhythm to environmental changes. From this moment on, a shift occurs in the use given to island's forest, sea and land. Its territory, which has defined natural boundaries, suffered, at that moment, from severe changes spreading from forest cutting for local use and, more importantly, to the Portuguese Royal Navy use. The analysis of these changes in the nature and of their influences on the life of a society allows new angles to read local history through, considering the environmental issue as an essential element.