O Vale do Paraíba passou por um conjunto de transformações espaciais guiadas pelo cultivo do café para exportação ao longo do século XIX. A história ambiental sugere que a natureza seja integrada à análise histórica elaborada por estudiosos do passado. Neste sentido, busca-se compreender a dinâmica de interação entre sociedade e ambiente natural através das técnicas utilizadas no cultivo do café no Vale do Paraíba fluminense no século XIX, com o objetivo de analisar os elementos que condicionaram o processo de estruturação desse cultivo no Vale, assim como o impacto dele resultante àquele ambiente natural. Procura-se ainda investigar de que maneira indivíduos daquela sociedade se posicionaram frente às técnicas utilizadas e perceberam as dinâmicas promovidas pela cultura cafeeira ao ambiente natural.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Paraiba Valley passed through a set of spatial changes driven by the exporting coffee cultivation. The environmental history suggests that nature must be integrated into the historical analysis developed by scholars in the past. Therein lies the search of understanding the interaction dynamics between society and natural environment through the techniques used in the coffee growing in the Paraiba Valley during the nineteenth century, aiming to analyze the factors that influenced the design process of this crop there, as well as its impact to that natural environment. The following research also intends to understand the way people from that society noticed and took their position on farming techniques that used to be applied and about the environmental interections driven by coffee cultivation.
