The word "Savanna" itself might be unfamiliar with people who live in the developed countries. Savanna is open grassland, which usually does not have trees in the tropical area. The Cerrado is the world's most biologically rich savanna which is home of over 12,000species of plants, mammals, birds, and reptiles and freshwater fish etc.

 

It extends almost 500million acres of Brazil, which covers about 23% of Brazil's surface area. However, unfortunately, only 2%of its region is protected as national parks and conservation areas.  

Since 1960, large-scale agriculture launched and became a one of the largest soy beans in the world, which lead to high deforestation rates, resulting in about 48%of the Cerrada loss.

 

In 2010, the world bank approved the US$6million grant to the sustainable plan for Corrada. Environment minister said that it is a great news not only for biodiversity conservation but also reducing emission caused from illegal deforestation.

 

This grant is expected to be helpful in that illegal deforestation in Corrada will be prevented and controlled. Furthermore, programs of biodiversity adaptation and conservation such as Tocantins Sustainable Cerrado Project and the Goias Sustainable Cerrado Project will be supported at the Federal level as well as at the state level.

 

The plan include four coordinated projects supported by the world bank The Goias Sustainable Project, the Cerrado Biodiversity Project , the Cerrado Policy and Biome Monitoring Project , Tocantins Sustainable Cerrado Project.

 

The expected results of these 4projects.

 

- The biome's natural resources will be used in a more sustainable way.

-New public policies regarding the conservation and sustainable use and natural resources management in Cerrado will be generated.

- Biome's status will be monitored to ensure whether the plan is practiced effectively

 

 

Source : GEF / The Nature Conservancy