Eastern South America

11,000 BCE - present

While greater attention to South America’s ecology is paid to the Andes and the Amazon, the Eastern portions of the continent include a stunning diversity of unique habitats. These range from the xeric shrubland of the Caatinga in far East Brazil, to the lush but almost completely extirpated dry broad-leaf tropical forests of the Mata Atlântica, to the world's largest tropical wetland area: the Pantanal. While each of these habitats have supported human settlement for thousands of years, the intense extractive practices of the Portuguese colonial system, followed by slash-and-burn practices of international agribusiness, have pushed many of them to the brink. With the loss of these habitats also goes the unique biodiversity of this region, once home to the now endangered Golden Lion Tamarin and the increasingly threatened Greater and Lesser Rhea.

Key Habitats

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.

Most Pressing Issues

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.