Landscapes and frontiers: Science, biodiversity and agricultural expansion at the cerrado in central Brazil

Abstract

This article aims to present the environmental history of the Cerrado (the Brazilian tropical savannah) as a biogeographic system and the environmental consequences of the agricultural frontier expansion in central Brazil. The research based on a diverse set of documentary and bibliographic sources that highlight the Cerrado landscapes, its biodiversity, with emphasis on the historical processes of agricultural frontier expansion. This is a theoretical-methodological assumption of environmental history study to understand the relationship between society and the Cerrado ecosystem. The results show the understanding of the Cerrado as biogeographic system is complex and the different historical processes of perception, description and occupation of this ecosystem happens in a varied way, considering the landscapes diversity and the natural elements that compose it. In addition, the governmental efforts in scientific development to make the Cerrado an agricultural frontier as well as the agricultural expansion of the last 50 years have significantly changed its landscapes, generating impacts and irreversible environmental damage to this unique ecosystem in the central plateaus of South America South.