10 - Brazil: selling biodiversity with local livelihoods

Summary

The state of biodiversity in Brazil

Brazil is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of biodiversity. In its 8.5 million km² lies one third of the remnant tropical forest of the earth, the biggest wetland complex of the planet (the Pantanal), the biologically richest savannah (the Cerrado), more marsh area than any other country, and the biggest water reserve of the globe. Such wide territory and diversity of biomes renders Brazil in the first rank among megadiversity countries, sheltering an estimated 10 to 20 per cent of all the world's species (Mittermeier et al. 1997).

The data of Mittermeier and his colleagues and Dias (1996) show that over 55,000 species of Brazilian plants have been classified, representing 22 per cent of the recorded flora of the planet. In the animal kingdom, Brazil contains 10 per cent of the world's 4,629 described mammal species; 17 per cent of the 9,702 recorded species of birds; 9 per cent of the 5,460 classified species of reptiles; 10 per cent of the world's 5,020 identified amphibian species; and about 12 per cent of the 24,618 identified species of fish. Besides the diversity of species, Brazilian biodiversity is also important for the number of its endemic species, which, according to Mittermeier et al., is only surpassed by Indonesia.