Brazilian Atlantic Islands: Fernando de Noronha and Atol das Rocas Reserves

According to the written record, Fernando de Noronha was found on 10 August 1503 by a Portuguese fleet under Gonçalo Coelho. Amerigo Vespucci, who sailed with it, spent a week on the uninhabited island. In January 1504 King Manuel I granted it as a hereditary captaincy to Fernão de Loronha, the Lisbon merchant who had financed the voyage, and the island came to bear his name.

Loronha's agents traded with the peoples of the Brazilian coast for brazilwood, a red dye wood, and the island served as the central collection point. In 1736 the French East India Company settled the island, but in 1737 and 1738 a Portuguese force expelled the French. From the late 18th century prisoners were sent here, and in the 19th century, while it served as a prison, most of its original large trees were cut down.

In 1988 about 70 percent of the archipelago became a marine national park. Rocas Atoll, about 150 km to the west, became a biological reserve in 1979 and is closed to the public. The two reserves were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2001 for the resident dolphins of Dolphin Bay, breeding grounds of hawksbill and green turtles, and the largest concentration of tropical seabirds in the Western Atlantic.