NEVINHO / WIKIMEDIA COMMONSTree in the Cerrado: surveying biological and social relevanceNEVINHO / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
A comprehensive survey of plant life in the Cerrado savannah—Brazil’s second-largest biome—will receive R$60 million from the Forest Investment Program (FIP), a funding window of the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds (CIF). The twofold goal is to gather information on native vegetation—such as the structure and size of plants—and conduct a survey among local residents to find out how they use biological materials like wood and seeds for subsistence purposes, to make products, and in providing services. This endeavor, which will receive assistance in fund management from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), is part of a broader project known as the National Forest Inventory. Conducted by the Brazilian Forest Service (SFB), an agency attached to the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), the initiative aims to create a large platform of information about forest resources across Brazil. “This survey is already underway in other biomes, like the Amazon. We hope to gather data on the extent of forests in Brazil, where they are and how they’re distributed,” explains Joberto Veloso de Freitas, director of Forest Research and Information at the SFB. “This will afford an overview of plant species and possibly reveal new ones and will also identify species that run the risk of extinction.” The scope of the inventory will be 20,000 square kilometers, covering all Brazilian biomes.
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