MGI Forest Workshop | 13-17 June 2012

Portuguese Conquistador, Pedro Álvares Cabral, led his fleet to the shores of the country now called Brazil in April 1500. The Europeans saw great potential in a land inhabited by squabbling tribes but rich in natural resource and potential wealth. Despite French and Spanish resistance, the Portuguese slowly expanded their territory in Brazil, taking Rio de Janeiro and some land in the Amazon basin before the Treaty of San Ildefonso was signed in 1777 (which agreed most of the modern borders). In 1808, the Portuguese royal family fled the Napoleonic wars and declared Brazil the centre of the entire Portuguese Empire. When King João VI returned to Europe, his elder son, Pedro de Alcântara, stood by the Brazilians as they refused to continue as a Portuguese colony and was named 1st Emperor of Brazil in 1822.

Towards the end of the 19th Century, the Monarchy was overthrown and a period of political instability began. After a number of rebellions, coups and changes of power, a brutal military dictatorship, led by Getúlio Vargas, gained power in 1937. After the Second World War, Vargas was overthrown and the country enjoyed a period of remarkable economic growth before a democratic government was finally re-established in 1985. In 2002, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), a former shoeshine boy and metalworker, ran a widely celebrated left-wing government. He helped establish Brazil as a major international economic power whilst investing in social welfare and the country’s poorer citizens. Current president Dilma Rouseff was a close political ally of Lula and is the first woman to hold office in Brazil.