During last year’s COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, more than 140 countries committed to halting and reversing deforestation by 2030. The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use recognized…
The European Commission's plan to counter deforestation associated with certain imported agricultural products was unveiled on November 17, 2021. One third of global deforestation is linked to international trade, and…
Under threat since 2020, the 20-year satellite monitoring program for deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna, a global biodiversity hotspot, may end in April due to lack of funding. "Part of…
All across the arid and semi-arid landscapes of Africa, grasslands meet the eye. These ecosystems provide a wealth of environmental services, sequestering immense amounts of carbon (grazing lands store up…
On July 19, Australian mining firm Predictive Discovery posted a breathless press release on its website. “Bonanza”-grade gold had been discovered at its Bankan exploration site in a remote part…
Farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire are full of praise for cashew, the Brazilian nut tree introduced in the 1960s – ironically, it turns out – to combat deforestation. They rhapsodize…
Europe is one of the largest drivers of tropical deforestation in the world, second only to China. That’s why the European Commission is drafting a plan to break the link…
Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as jaguars,…
Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected by…
The fires that tore through South America’s Pantanal region in 2020, destroying 30% of its area, are still scorched in memory. And now, the world’s largest wetland that fans out…
Giant anteaters are native to the savannas of Central and South America. They forage in the open spaces of the mosaic of forests, grasslands and wetlands, and rest in the…
BROOME, Australia — A cool breeze blows through the savanna country east of Broome, a small town on the far north coast of Western Australia, Australia's largest state. This time of year is known as Barrgana by the…
A profit of over 400%. That’s what BrasilAgro got from one of its early business ventures. The company bought the Cremaq farm in 2006, paying 42 million reais ($8 million)…
There’s a tree-planting frenzy everywhere you look. In August 2019, the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India announced that more than a million Indians had planted 220 million trees…
As the planet warms, it isn’t just humans who are feeling the heat — trees are too. Rising temperatures are disrupting a primary engine of life on Earth: photosynthesis. A…
Experts see sustainable small-scale cultivation of endemic fruits, nuts and vegetables by traditional communities as a way to value and save Cerrado ecosystems, while also supporting some of the biome’s best defenders.
The Kadiwéu Indigenous group, living where the Cerrado and Pantanal biomes meet, has resisted annihilation since the colonial era. Their secret weapon: the creative arts that help define their identity.
The Kalunga — 39 quilombola communities, the descendants of runaway slaves — have united with international funders to use high-tech georeferencing to catalog their traditional lands and natural resources in Brazil.
With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its…
Even as agribusiness and the Brazilian government became allies to aggressively convert more of the savanna for soy and cattle, the National Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado moved to conserve the biome.
An innovative collaborative group is working to restore Brazil’s savanna by sowing native plant seeds on degraded agricultural lands; it’s an effort that’s working, say participants.
Georeferencing, a digital process for registering land ownership, is now widespread in South America, but it is high-tech that can be used by landgrabbers and companies to obtain deeds to collective ancestral lands.
Maned wolves, pumas, giant anteaters, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals are threatened with local extinctions unless more conserved areas are established in Brazil’s savanna biome, say scientists.
A recent report shows that one of the world’s most highly regarded, and wealthiest, universities invested heavily in land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands, where land-grabbing and other environmental crimes are rife.
Amazonia, with its towering trees, bright birds, pink dolphins and mysterious big cats, has been painted as the quintessential wilderness, an exuberant and endless landscape that evolved beyond the touch…
Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
A first ever study has quantified carbon emissions across Brazil’s entire soy sector in detail and pinpointed the highest deforestation related emissions in the Cerrado savanna, followed by the Amazon.
The Brazilian savanna has always been a dry place, but the massive conversion of native vegetation to soy is making it far dryer, as is deepening, climate change-driven, drought.
After decades of suppressing fire, park managers in Brazil’s savanna are relying on indigenous and traditional fire knowledge and Integrated Fire Management as a conservation tool.
Scientists have uncovered hidden populations of Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus) in savanna enclaves on the southern edge of the Brazilian Amazon, hundreds of miles from any historically known population of…
A new initiative by Nutreco, Tesco and Grieg Seafood pledges $13 million to pay soy growers not to deforest the savanna for new soy fields. More are hoped to join the fund.
Meat and dairy consumption in Europe are contributing disproportionately to habitat destruction of charismatic species like the giant anteater in Brazil's Cerrado savanna.
