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Soy boom devours Brazil’s tropical savanna

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Clawing back nature in the Atlantic Forest

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Saving Endangered Darwin’s Rhea in Chile's Patagonia

EastSA-2015-GranChaco

Gran Chaco Assaulted by Agribusiness

EastSA 2013 protest

Mapuche Protest against fracking

EastSA 2011 GoldenLionTamarin

Golden Lion Tamarin Recovery

EastSA-2010-RheaHabitat

Rhea Habitat Being Destroyed Across East South America

EastSA 2005 papermill

Protests against paper mill pollution

EastSA-2004-Portugal

The Wood that Portugal Took from Brazil

EastSA 2002

Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund Established to Protect the Atlantic Forest

EastSA-2002-Rheas

Rheas Coming Under Increased Threat

EastSA-1999-GranChaco

Vegetation of the Gran Chaco before Colonialization

EastSA-1995-KaalyadelGranChaco

Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park

EastSA-1993-Pantanal

Poetry of the Pantanal

EastSA-1991-Dams

First Annual Congress of MAB (Movement of those Affected by Dams)

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New Species of Monkey Discovered in the Mata Atlantica

EastSA-1988-Pantanal

The Pantanal under Threat

EastSA-1985-Sugarcane

The Effect of Sugarcane on the Mata Atlantica

EastSA-1985-cubatao

"Valley of Death:" Brazil's Cubatão is among the world's most polluted cities

EastSA-1965-WildPantanal

The Wild Pantanal

EastSA-1661-Tijuca

Tijuca Forest Established as National Park 

EastSA 1960 Glaucous Macaw

Extinction of the Glaucous Macaw

EastSA-1956-GrandeSertao

"Grande Sertão: Veredas" (Bedeviled in the Badlands)

EastSA-1955-ParanaBrazil

The Primordial Forests of Paraná, Brazil

EastSA-1953-JorgeLuisBorges

Jorge Luis Borges on the Pampas

EastSA-1943-MataAtlantica

The Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) of Bahia

EastSA 1939 eskimocurlew

Last sighting of the eskimo curlew (numenius borealis) in the pampas

EastSA-1938-Drought

Drought on the Sertão

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Colors of The Pampas 

EastSA-1914-Roosevelt

Roosevelt On The Upper Paraguay

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Range of the Rhea

EastSA 1889

Sentinels of the Gran Chaco Lagoons

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The incommensurable Gran Chaco

EastSA 1879

Charles Darwin on the undulating Pampas

EastSA-1875-Prosperity

"The prosperity of future generations"

EastSA-1872-ThePampas

The Open Pampas

EastSA 1872 gauchopampas

Gaucho Ballad

EastSA 1860-70 pampasdeer

Two million pampas deer hides exported from Buenos Aires

EastSA-1857-MataAtlantica

Arrival in the Mata Atlantica

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Thunderstorm on the Pampas

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Original Forest Does Not Recover From Clearing

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The Pampas from "Facundo" by D.F. Sarmiento

EastSA-1843-DiamondMining

Francois de Castelnau Foresees Diamond Mining in Eastern Brazil

EastSA-1837-DarwinsRhea(2)

From Darwin's Description of the Rhea

EastSA-1820-Spix

German Scientists  Spix and Martius Collect Thousands of Rare Species

EastSA 1750s cattleranching

Cattle Ranching on Estancias

EastSA 1729 Coffeaarabica

Coffee introduced to Rio de Janeiro

EastSA 1550 RiodeJaneiro

Conquering the nature of Rio de Janeiro

EastSA-1536-Horses

The Introduction of Horses to the Pampas

EastSA 1500s

Europeans mistake Guanabara Bay for a river delta

EastSA-1492-PrecolumbianGrassland

The pre-Columbian grasslands of South America

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Tupi Swidden Agriculture

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The beginning of agriculture in the Mata Atlantica

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Mound builders of the Pantanal wetlands

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Pre-colonial settlement in the Cerrado

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Arrival of humans and megafauna extinction in the Pampas

Americas, South America, Eastern South America

Cerrado

Referred to in Portuguese as the Sertão (hinterland), the Cerrado is a vast inland savanna between the eastern coast and the Amazon. The Cerrado has been named the biologically richest savanna in the world, with about 10,000 plant species and 10 endemic bird species. However, the Cerrado is under assault by agribusiness and the cattle ranching industry, which set their sights on the less high-profile savanna for new land whenever the Amazon receives conservation focus.  

Mata Atlântica

The Atlantic Forest once covered almost the entire Eastern coast of Brazil, offering an incredible abundance of timber. The name Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for the Brazilwood tree, so popular with merchants and sailors that it came to supplant the original name of the colony. Over the next 500 years, almost 85% of the original forest was cleared for timber as well as sugarcane production. With the disappearance of the forest has come an almost unimaginable loss of biodiversity.

Pampas

Made famous by the lore of the Gaucho in Argentinian culture, the Pampas is a fertile lowland stretching inland from the Rio de la Plata. It is well-known for its vistas of seemingly endless grassland and intense thunderstorms in the spring and summer. Because of its temperate climate, the Pampas is regarded as one of the best agricultural regions in the world. Because of its fertility, the plains are increasingly being divided up and used for ranching and agriculture.     

Pantanal

Located on the border between Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay, the Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland area. Its swamp, bog, and wetland habitats cover between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometers (54,000 and 75,000 sq mi). Annual rainfall feeds the Pantanal, which in turn offers a home for 463 bird species, 269 fish, and more than 236 mammal species. While a portion of the habitat has been conserved, much remains threatened by pollution, development, and damming.

Gran Chaco

The Grand Chaco is a hot and semi-arid plain in the center of the continent, bordered by the Andes to the West and the Pantanal to the south. Despite its heat, the area is rich in biodiversity, with around 3,400 plant species, 500 birds, 150 mammals, and 220 reptiles and amphibians. While sparsely populated for most of the modern era, it has recently come under pressure from development by agribusiness. 

Key Habitats

Deforestation

The Mata Atlântica has been largely decimated by 500 years of development, but now other landscapes around Eastern South America are also coming under intense pressure. This includes, especially, the Cerrado and the Gran Chaco, where once pristine land is being cleared to make way for cattle farming. 

Monoculture Farming

The vast open landscapes of the Pampas and the Cerrado savanna have supported small-scale and subsistence agriculture for millennia. But in recent years, the advent and growth of agribusiness practices have brought the fragmentation and exhaustion of these landscapes in pursuit of cash crops like sugarcane and soybean.

Loss of Biodiversity

While Brazil is considered one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet, it also has one of the world’s fastest growing agricultural economies. Brazilian agribusiness increasingly looks to undeveloped areas like the Cerrado and Gran Chaco for expansion. Conservation efforts are currently insufficient to counter the biodiversity loss caused by this rapid development.

Cattle Ranching

Cattle ranching is a lucrative business with an incredibly destructive effect on the environment, contributing to greenhouse gasses and degrading biodiversity. Eastern South America is increasingly becoming a landscape of cattle farms, from the remote scrublands of the Gran Chaco to the once expansive plains of the Pampas, to the vast backcountry of the Cerrado.

Most Pressing Issues

Eastern South America