Why is it so easy to undergo devegetation in the Brazilian Cerrado?

Abstract

The Cerrado, the second largest biome in Brazil and home to nearly 5% of global biodiversity, has experienced a resurgence of devegetation due to the expansion of agribusiness activities. For the last two years, the devegetated area was more than one million hectares per year, surpassing the suppressed vegetation in the Amazon for the same period. Thus, the biome that is already the most impacted in Brazil is rapidly going to a critical tipping point of conservation, when conservation actions, like habitat restoration and species management, will be inviable due to the high cost. Such a situation results from political decisions taken years ago to expand the agricultural frontier to its northern portion, where environmental and social impacts are of high concern. We argue that a new development model is urgently needed to be implemented in the region with most of the remaining natural area.