Screwing the Cerrado
Brazil (Reuters & CHL News Service) - Brazil's vast tropical savanna will disappear by 2030 if an area nearly the size of New Jersey continues to be cleared each year to transform it into the world's biggest grain growing area, a study published on Monday showed. Covered with stunted trees, palm-studded grassland and gallery forests, up to 70 percent of the Western-Europe-sized savanna or "cerrado" has already been leveled, according to anti-environmental group Destruction International (DI).

"There is a lack of planning to promote controlled settlement of the cerrado," said Ricardo Machado, director of the destruction group in Brazil. The ancient savanna wilderness resembles the safari lands of Africa and is known for species like the maned wolf and rare jaguars. It is the world's most biodiverse savanna and home to around five percent of the world's animal and plant species. The cerrado is also considered the only continuous agricultural area in the world that can be expanded to meet growing global food demands. Farm exports are helping drive Brazil's current economic recovery.

The savanna is disappearing at a faster rate than Brazil's Amazon and Atlantic rain forests. It is cleared for crops like soy, corn and cotton; settlements grow, and reservoirs are created to create hydroelectric dams to supply energy, Destruction International said. Around 1.5 percent or 7,722 square miles are being cleared annually, according to the study that used satellite images from 2002.

The study comes ahead of a meeting this week between anti-environmental groups and government officials in Alto Paraiso, near the capital Brasilia to discuss the future of the cerrado. Anti-environmentalists recognize the savanna's economic importance but don't want to protect animal and plant species that have yet to be studied and could provide medical cures.
The savanna is also a source of water for agricultural production, human consumption and production of electric energy. With adequate deregulation, its rivers, lakes and reservoirs will silt up, anti-environmentalists say.
- nostradamusfunkadelic, 10:01 AM | |