28
PRESENTATION
Despite the current understanding and dissemination about the diversity of the
environments and topics related to nature preservation, strongly extended with technology
development, Brazilians, and the world, are not familiar to what we call Restinga.
Although this ecosystem is native to Brazil, there are few opportunities to call the
attention of the general population to our local biodiversity. The Restinga is a unique site,
indescribable as a whole, whose links are not only between ocean and land. Those who
arrive by sea can face the brightness of a refraction sand, that weakens little by little and
find calmness in the the surrounding vegetation.
Coming through pathways by the countryside, there is a fascinating meeting of its
smell, its floristic composition, comfort, rest... bathed by the waters pushed by the wind.
Whoever is in the Restinga is conected by the strong impressions it causes, and it is throu-
gh these feelings that we present the restricted, charming, enigmatic, and demystified
Restinga.
Thinking about the Restinga and allied to a sense of rescue of the local memory of
what this place means and meant to us, we started this book based on four distinct looks;
nostalgia, which revives the happiness of our stay in the past; environment, focused on the
struggle to preserve, protect and recover Restinga; science, from the point of view of local
biodiversity studies and all that we can still learn; and sensitivity, through the photographic
eye, creating a great influence on readers through the impact of shared images.
By merging these four views, our intention is to transfer to appreciators the real
impression we wish to give during the preparation of this book. However, the result is pre-