GREEN DESERT. THE EUCALYPTUS OF MINAS GERAIS. BRAZIL
Eucalyptus has been thought of as a more environmentally friendly source of wood, however, in Brazil the Cerrado savannah’s pristine forest is being cut down to plant the eucalyptus which originally habits Australia.
What only 70 years ago was practically an untouched diverse biome made up of trees and shrubs that evolved to adapt to periodic fires through their extensive root systems and thick bark trunks, the Cerrado’s destruction is increasingly growing into an environmental disaster. While the world rests assured that the deforestation caused to the Amazon has been stabilised, the Brazilian Cerrado, the richest savannah on earth, has come under siege of a relentless invasion to fuel Brazil’s economic growth and foreign investments.
One of the most destructive of the monocultures is Eucalyptus. The vast Eucalyptus forest’s create enormous corridors of intensively farmed wood. Often, locals call the forest’s the ‘ green desert ‘. The tree is an extremely thirsty wood and has been blamed for drying out many local water sources. This has become a concern for scientists as many of Brazil’s great rivers source at the Cerrado, including the Amazon river. Extensive draining of local water sources could have a negative impact on the Amazon river which could result in catastrophic results on the earths climate.
Huge amounts of the rapid growing Eucalyptus is used in the charcoal furnaces in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais which holds some of the largest charcoal furnaces in the world. The charcoal in turn is used in the nearby steel factories in the city of Belo Horizonte.
With an absence of sustainable agricultural measures and effective application of environmental protection laws, we are at the pinnacle point of losing the richest savannah in the world.