This article discusses the common use of land on the Santa Catarina highlands, aiming to demonstrate in what manner this practice, especially the free livestock breeding, has shaped the rural landscapes, dominated by Mixed Ombrophylous Forest, until the first half of the 20th century. Based on memory of old inhabitants it is possible to say that the livestock breeding, besides morpholofically mantaining the forest landscape, it was an usual practice and an important income source for many families in this region. This form of using the land started to lose its structure with the insertion of a new socio-spatial dynamics represented by the private appropriation of land, colonization and deforestation.
Common use of land; landscape; mixed ombrophylous forest
