Deforestation last year rose to the highest level since 2015 in Brazil's Cerrado, prompting scientists on Monday to raise alarm over the state of the world's most species-rich savanna, a major carbon sink that helps to stave off climate change.
Setting 2020 as a cut-off date to ban new deforestation and land conversion for soybean areas in Brazil's Cerrado savanna is not feasible, André Nassar, head of the country's oilseeds crushers' group, Abiove, says.
As much as 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest could be transformed into drier savanna-like landscape if rainfall levels continue to drop as a result of climate change.
