The cerrado, a wooded grassland that once spanned 204 million hectares, half the size of Europe, is quickly being changed into croplands to meet rising demand for soybeans, sugarcane, and cattle.

According to a Brazilian expert on the savannah ecosystem, the cerrado is now disappearing at a breakneck rate, twice that of the Amazon rainforest.

Dr Ricardo Machado, author of a study said, "The Cerrado was pretty much intact until the 60s, when most of the relevant economic activity was the cattle ranching. During the 70s, when new technologies and new varieties of plants (corn, soybean, rice, wheat, eucalyptus, and grasses for livestock) where introduced the Cerrado became an important region for the Brazilian agribusiness. More and more native areas were cleared to be converted for planted pastures (using African grasses) or croplands. The natural vegetation removed was converted to charcoal to be used by the steel industry."

He estimates that the cerrado was 73% of its original area in 1985 and approximately 43% in 2004. He insists that the area occupied by pastures and croplands has increased since 2004, considering the rapid rise in Brazil's agricultural production and land prices. Pegging the annual loss at 2.2 million hectares every year, or about 1.1% of the remaining cerrado, he compared this to Brazil's Amazon rainforest loss of 10.7 million hectares between 2002 and 2006, 2.1 million hectares or about 0.5% a year.

Scientists has said deforestation of the rainforest have been fueled by conversion of the cerrado for large-scale soybean farms, sugar plantations and cattle pasture as small-scale farmers and land speculators dig deeper into forest areas. Road and infrastructure development have also spurred deforestation.

Philip Fearnside, a researcher at the National Institute for Research in the Amazon said, "Soybean farms cause some forest clearing directly. But they have a much greater impact on deforestation by consuming cleared land, savanna, and transitional forests, thereby pushing ranchers and slash-and-burn farmers ever deeper into the forest frontier. Soybean farming also provides a key economic and political impetus for new highways and infrastructure projects, which accelerate deforestation by other actors."

William F. Laurance, president of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) concurs, commenting that "Soy farming is having a huge impact in the Amazon right now, for three reasons. First, industrial soy farmers are themselves clearing a lot of forest. Second, soy farmers are buying up large expanses of cleared land from slash-and-burn farmers and cattle ranchers, and the displaced farmers and ranchers often just move further out into the forest, maintaining a lot of pressure on frontier areas. Finally, the soy farmers are a very powerful political lobby that is pushing for major expansion of roads, highways, river-channelization projects, and other transportation that will criss-cross large expanses of the Amazon. This infrastructure is acting like Pandora's box--it is opening up the frontier to spontaneous, unplanned colonization and exploitation by ranchers, farmers, hunters, and illegal gold miners."

Dr. Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center expects land-clearing to accelerate and said, "We see soy prices going up partly because less soy is being grown in the U.S. as corn expands to meet the surging demand for the emerging ethanol industry. Similarly as sugar cane expands in southern Brazil, soy production is heading northward, encroaching on the Amazon."

"The future of Cerrado is not good if the current trends persist," said Machado.

Some, such as Aliança da Terra, believe the market is the best route to slow conversion of cerrado and neighboring ecosystems.

An organization founded by rancher John Cain Carter, Aliança da Terra believes that the market can succeed by giving producers incentives such as market access to reduce their impact on the environment. Aliança da Terra helps Brazilian farmers and ranchers get the best price for their products, but only if they follow the rules.

"We're setting up an accrediting mechanism that will help responsible landowners gain access to markets and get the best price for their products," Cater said, "We want market recognition for shouldering this conservation burden. Where else in the world do you have landowners who have to keep 50 percent of their land forest? Nowhere. If the consumer is supposed to benefit people for doing that then you tip the scales back in favor of the landowner and its going to create more positive feedback for people to follow the rules by maintaining the forest. As it is right now there's nothing to keep forest standing because the law doesn't catch you in time and you can always bribe your way out of it if you do get caught."

"We're trying to turn this forest reserve law from a negative into a positive, or make lemonade out of lemons, so to speak," Carter added.

According to Machado, the Brazilian government plans to invest US$30 million in conservation of the cerrado.

"We need to incorporate conservation issues on our development plan for the region," Machado said, "Conservation of biodiversity on private lands, respect for local indigenous cultures and traditional communities, restoration of degraded areas, protection of headwaters, creation of financial mechanisms for ecosystem services payments, carbon credits for avoided deforestation and environmental education are some initiatives that must be implemented immediately."

Scientists say the biome, which ranks as the world's most biologically rich savannah, is vital. Home to more than 10,000 species of plants, 935 species of birds, and almost 300 mammals, research shows that the ecosystem provides crucial watershed services and plays an essential role in carbon cycling.

"Many leaders and decision-makers wrongly justify this deforestation because the Cerrado is not covered with dense tropical forests like the Amazon or the Atlantic Forest," said Machado. "This reaction ignores the fact that the biome harbors the richest savannah in the world, with abundant biodiversity and watershed resources that are of great importance for Brazil."