Reviewing the Cerrado's limits, flora distribution patterns, and conservation status for policy decisions

Abstract

The Cerrado contains a wide variety of vegetation types, and it is known for its high biodiversity but is highly threatened. We review the changes through time of geographical limits, studies on flora distribution patterns, and conservation status of Cerrado. Even with advances in technology, only the first government official map of Cerrado in 1993 included disjunct cerrado vegetations, that is, cerrado enclaves in other phytogeographic domains. The lack of cerrado enclaves delimiting and changes of geographical limits of Cerrado affects the land regulations because Brazilian government programs, or even laws, can be specific to a phytogeographic domain. Cerrado flora distribution presented a consistent pattern among studies along time, in which different regions show high similarity in their floristic composition, namely Biogeographic Districts (BD). We need conservation actions in each BD, since protected areas and deforestation rates are uneven among the BDs. Today, only 8.36% of cerrado are in Conservations Units (CU), far from the goal of 17% by 2020. Only 6.51% of cerrado are Indigenous Lands (IL). Both protected areas (CU and IL) have practically not increased since 2009. Discounting area overlapped, only 14.41% of Cerrado territory is in Protected Areas. The clear-cut deforested area reached 49.9% of Cerrado in 2019. From 2016–2019, the average annual deforestation rate is proportionally 78% higher than in Amazon. In recent years, the higher deforestation rates are in the states of North and Northeast of Brazil. We need strategic plans to conserve areas in all Biogeographic Districts, including disjunct cerrado areas, and think out how to reduce deforestation rates and promote sustainability actions.