Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Protection for Cerrado Ecosystem

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 28 2005 (IPS) - The Cerrado, a savannah-like ecosystem that covers a fifth of Brazil's territory, is slated to receive 81 million dollars under a program for environmental protection. One-third of that sum will be contributed by the Global Environment Facility, which was founded in 1991 to help developing countries fund projects that protect the global environment.

The Sustainable Cerrado Program, formalized two weeks about by presidential decree, “has arrived late,” given that it was expected in 2003, but is important because it represents a “change in attitude,” Mario Barroso, of the non-governmental organization Conservation International, told Tierramérica.

It is a “first step” towards a new model of non-destructive use of the Cerrado, previously considered a sort of escape valve, “to be sacrificed in order to save the Amazon,” he said.

More than half of this ecosystem has been devastated, and only recently has its role been recognized as a supplier of the country's main watershed systems.