It is not the Amazon that is in trouble, it’s the Cerrado. The attention of the world has been drawn to the Amazon, but an area that is home to 5% of the planet’s plants and animals, the Cerrado is disappearing faster. The Cerrado, a “mosaic” habitat made up of savannah, grassland, and forest, is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, and spans about 200 million hectares. (20% larger than Florida). It is estimated to be the home of 837 species of birds, 120 of reptiles, 150 of amphibians, 1,200 thousand fish, 90,000 insects and 199 types of mammals. It also has 11,000 plat species, nearly half of which are found nowhere else on earth. The Cerrado is half the size of the Amazon and is 50% deforested, and it is losing 700,000 hectares per year. In the last 10 years, pretty much all of the expansion of soy within Brazil has happened in the Cerrado. In the Amazon, 50% is supposedly protected, in the Cerrado, only 8% is. In a recent report, Greenpeace suggested that the remaining original vegetation of the region contains a carbon store of equivalent to 13.7 gigatonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide.
I remember this deforestation has been happening for decades as I was witnessed to it when I lived in the Cerrado region on a farm that was being “developed” between 1984 and 1986. I saw wolfs (Lobo), giant anteaters, (Tatus), Anacondas, deer and Tucanos and parakeets. The lad was being cleared and the trees were burned and turned into charcoal. The area is now home to irrigated coffee as far as I know. The opening up will continue given the profitability of agricultural exports.