Historical State of Cerrado

The Cerrado, meaning "closed" or "dense" in Portuguese, is a tropical savanna located within the center-west region of Brazil. It contains forests, woodlands and grasslands and spans approximately 204 million hectares, or 25% of Brazil's land area. Due to high concentrations of aluminum, the soils of the cerrado are relatively toxic, a fact which secured its title as the  wasteland of Brazil until the 1950's. This isolation from human intervention allowed the world's biologically richest savanna  to protect its high level of species diversity, including its 4,400 endemic plant species and 117 endemic terrestrial vertebrate species (Wolford). Jaguars, maned wolves, giant anteaters, giant armadillos and marsh deer wander the plains while 306 different species of birds roam the skies.

          

The first colonists arrived in the 1800s searching for gold and precious stones. Their settlements, roads and railways led to the development of cattle ranches, the first major human impact on the ecosystem and its primary economic activity until the 1950s. From the 1960s on, state and allied international development interests encouraged scientists to develop technology to prepare the Cerrado for agriculture while financing "Cerrado land clearing, production, commercialization, capital goods acquisition and harvest" (Jepson). The highly acidic soil was transformed using fertilizer, high quantities of limestone and water, sending Brazil on its way to becoming a global agricultural power. As environmentalists became alarmed by deforestation in Amazonia, policymakers suggested Cerrado as a sustainable alternative. As scientists developed seeds adapted to thrive in the savanna biome, "in the span of 25 years, soybean production in Brazil increased almost 400%, a higher rate of growth than that experienced by any other internationally traded commodity in the world during the 20th century" (Wolford).