One of Brazil's most important natural resources, the coastal tropical rainforest known as the Mata Atlantica has been almost entirely substituted by export crops. Sugar cane and cocoa were raised for export and based on the ownership of private land by a few individuals, and compulsory or underpaid work performed by hundreds of thousands of laborers. Sugar empires were built entirely by slavery while cocoa used the labor of free migrants. Today, both crops employ the region's largest parcel of rural workers. The planting of sugar cane almost completely destroyed much of the Northeast's original vegetation.
Cocoa is more environmentally friendly because it needs the shade of trees to grow properly.
Both crops require minimal levels of technology and can use unskilled labor. To survive the cyclical boom and bust stages that characterize international commodities markets, both crops have depended on massive government subsidies during times of low prices. They have enriched themselves, and created powerful political oligarchies that still play a decisive role in determining how public funds and public policies are shaped and implemented. Members of this elite minority elect the Northeast's representatives, mayors and governors, and they have direct access to Bras lia's channels of power. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of illiterate, impoverished and landless rural workers starve.