Cerrado Day: Brazil’s most endangered biome hosts eight of the ten most deforested municipalities

Brasil de Fato

More than half of the total area deforested in Brazil by 2023 is in the Cerrado. Over 38 years, from 1985 to 2023, the biome lost 38 million hectares, representing a 27% reduction in its original vegetation. Eight of the ten most deforested municipalities in 2023 are in the Cerrado. This data comes from the MapBiomas platform, which uses satellite images to gather information on Brazilian biomes, and the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM, in Portuguese).  

Deforestation is progressing mainly in the area known as Matopiba, which spans the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí, and Bahia. This region includes São Desidério also in Bahia state, the most deforested municipality in the country in 2023, losing 40,052 hectares of vegetation.  

“Matopiba is one of the areas with the most native vegetation in the Cerrado, but it is also the most threatened, undergoing a very rapid process of converting native vegetation to other uses,” explains Ane Alencar, Director of Science at IPAM and coordinator of MapBiomas’ Cerrado team.  

Most of the deforested areas in Matopiba are now pastures. “However, there is an increasing area of plantations, particularly agricultural crops like soybeans,” Alencar points out. Currently, 26 million hectares of the Cerrado are used for agriculture, with 75% of this area dedicated to soybean cultivation.  

Devastation in the biome is supported by the Forest Code, which requires private properties in the Cerrado to preserve at least 20% of their native vegetation. Another factor favoring deforestation is the small number of protected areas in the biome, such as Conservation Units (UCs), where stricter rules for land use apply.  

According to Dhemerson Conciani, a researcher at IPAM, the ongoing devastation could even harm agribusiness if left unchecked. “Continuing deforestation at this rate will have even more severe consequences for climate regulation and economic sectors, especially agribusiness, which depends on the climate and water resources in the Cerrado,” he says.  

The other municipalities with the largest deforested areas in the biome in 2023 are in Maranhão: Balsas and Alto Parnaíba; Bahia: Jaborandi, Cocos, and Barreiras; Piauí: Baixa Grande do Ribeiro; and Tocantins: Rio Sono. Outside the Cerrado, the municipalities with the most deforestation in 2023 are Altamira in Pará state and Corumbá in Mato Grosso do Sul state.  

In eight months, fires in the Cerrado consumed an area the size of Switzerland  

Between January and August 2024, fires consumed 4 million hectares of forest in the Brazilian Cerrado, 79% of which was native vegetation. This figure represents an 85% increase compared to last year, when 2.2 million hectares were burned. The data comes from the MapBiomas platform’s Fire Monitor.  

Although the biome has vegetation types that have evolved to cope with fires, frequent droughts, and extreme temperatures have altered the natural fire regime.  

“The Cerrado’s growing vulnerability to climate change and human impacts requires decisive action to reverse it,” says Vera Arruda, a researcher at IPAM. “It is essential to implement public policies that promote awareness, strengthen monitoring systems, and strictly enforce laws against illegal burning,” she says.