More than 10,000 hectares of cerrado, a tropical savanna biome, may be deforested in the northern region of Minas Gerais state. The BrasilAgro company, the property's owner, intends to deforest the area to implement soybean and cattle production.
In February this year, the Preliminary License request was submitted to the responsible body, but environmentalists who followed the issue say the process is full of negligence. BrasilAgro’s Preliminary License request was suspended in March. According to the company’s statement, the project was developed democratically through discussions with the civil and local communities.
"We know that in that small area, part of it was used in the 70s in an attempt to cultivate eucalyptus. The rest of the region directly affected does not have any use on a large scale. Thus we can be talking about primary cerrado, untouched areas", says Lígia Vial, from the Minas State Association for the Defense of the Environment
Also on What's Happening in Brazil: news updates from Brazil with information regarding a campaign by Leonardo DiCaprio to foster the young vote and the violence against Yanomami indigenous.
On the culture segment, learn more from the jazz tradition and culture in Maranhão, a state also known for reggae and listen to The Curumins band.
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Edited by: Arturo Hartmann
