Cerrado | Biomas do Brasil | Ep.10

When we talk about termites, you Jubi-student usually thinks about infestation, <i>"My house is ridden with termites eating the furniture! "</i> And they really are an infestation in the cities, but here on Cerrado, termites have a very big ecological importance. That's because they are food for various animals that live around here, such as birds - woodpeckers love termites, you have frogs, anteaters, armadillos, all these critters enjoy coming here to feed off termites.

Moreover, there's an armadillo lair here, it's already living near its food source - a very interesting detail is that here in the National Park of Rheas, these termite mounds become bioluminescent by October, they emit light. - Gee! Why?

Because fireflies, which are those blinking bugs, lay their larvae in here, to feed off termites and they end up emitting light, causing a beautiful spectacle of nature. ♪ An interesting detail is that the Cerrado has plenty of termite mounds, which are these structures in which termites live. <i>- "But Jubijubao, there's no furniture there!

What are</i> <i>they eating? Because I learned that termites eat wood! "</i> Actually a termite doesn't eat wood, it eats cellulose, which is a carbohydrate that exists in the wood, because cellulose builds the cell wall of plants and wood comes from plants.

Another trivia, is that termites aren't able to digest this cellulose, they need help and the animals that help them with that are protozoa, so the termite has plenty of protozoa inside its intestine. The protozoan picks the celluose, diggests it, saves some of it and gives the rest to the termite, a relation of mutualism. The termite gets the digestion of its food and the protozoan gets food and also protection inside the termite's intestine.

Termites are quite important for the Cerrado soil, and you know when we talk about soil and Cerrado, any help is worth, that's because they build tunnels and as they do it, they mix the soil and help to improve its draining and oxygenation, besides, termite's feces work as fertilizer that makes easy for the growth of several plants here on Cerrado. ♫ There are various types of vegetal formations on Cerrado, we have campestral formations represented by clean and dirty fields, we have savanna formations with strict sense Cerrado and Vereda fields, as well as forest formations such as the big cerrado and gallery forests. ♪ Here where I am now, there's a classic example of clean fields and you on the other side of the screen, might have noticed the main characteristic, which is the predominance of herbaceous plants, specially grasses.

Of course that happens because the Cerrado soil is usually poor in nutrients, there's plenty of aluminum, but this soil here is even poorer in nutrients, is more acidic, has more aluminum and that's why almost no plant is able to grow here, besides grasses. ♫ We have dirty fields as well, - <i>"Ah Jubi, those that have garbage! "</i> That's awful!

No, dirty fields have no garbage! Actually, dirty fiels are those that have some bushes, besides grasses, you start to observe a small bush there, a small bush over here, which means that the soil here is bad as well, but it's less bad than the soil of the clean fields - we have strict sense Cerrado as well, which is nothing more than the good old Cerrado that you usually learn about at school, which is characterized by this landscape with shallow underbrush and spaced bushes with twisted branches inside this vegetation. ♫ We also have flooded areas on Cerrado, such as this one right here, which are known as vereda fields.

It's quite common to find these flooded areas associated to palm trees like that one behind me, which is the <i>buriti</i>. That's a very important region, as long as many Cerrado birds utilize this place for nesting, and not only the birds. The <i>sucuri</i> snakes also like this place to have their babies - that's why I have to stay sharp here, because in fact there's a <i>sucuri</i> trail right here.

♪ As crazy as it seems, in fact we can even find forest formations in some regions of the Cerrado, which are known as big cerrado. Forests located right in the middle of the Cerrado, with trees that can reach 50 feet and then you may ask me: <i>- "But Jubijubao, how could that happen? "</i> Basically because very likely the soil in this part of the Cerrado has more nutrients, is able to retain more water, also has less aluminum, is less acidic, in other words, it offers conditions for the vegetation that is seeded here, to be able to develop into big plants.

♪ Guys, that's awesome! I was baking in the sun and suddenly I entered this big cerrado with a canopy casting a shadow over my head and what's interesting besides the moisture I'm feeling, the refreshing sensation at this moment, in the middle of the hot cerrado, is this soil here, come with me! Take a look at the amount of litterfall we have - this litterfall is mainly the remains of rotting plants that provide nutrients so that these plants can develop more.

The big secret of the big cerrado is here - plus, there's a water puddle there, so this is a very moist soil. Besides, I'm already noticing the presence of moss, bryophytes - you remember, they like moist places. So we have a forest formation in the middle of the Cerrado called "big cerrado", with a lot of moisture and biodiversity.

All of sudden, as I walk through the big cerrado, take a look at what I just found, check this out! A spring - guys, we have thousands of springs like this one here on Cerrado and these waters will feed the rivers of the region and later on they will feed rivers all over Brazil. In other words, the water flowing out here, will quench the thirst of Brazil.

♪ Still there are the gallery forests and riparian forests, which are vegetal formations that follow the river. These trees that exist in these regions can reach up to a 100 feet. These vegetations along the rivers are important ecological corridors, because they allow for the communication between the Amazon, the Atlantic Forest, Caatinga and Pantanal.

All those biomes make border with the Cerrado, allowing the movement of various species from one biome to another, such as the jaguar. As you noticed, the Cerrado presents several types of vegetation that fill large areas. It's not a homogeneous landscape, rather, it's heterogeneous, that's why some authors say the Cerrado is not a single biome, rather is a set of biomes - thus being called cerrado domain.

♪ Most of the Cerrado fauna is not endemic exactly because it makes border with other biomes, in other words, the animals here are also found in various others Brazilian biomes. The peccary is a good example of an animal that's found in various Brazilian biomes, including the Cerrado. They usually move in packs and are quite aggressive, but this one here ended up abandoned and raised by humans, that's why it allows a proximity.

- That's Tuca! Ants are quite important for the Cerrado, as well as termites, they move the soil and help the penetration of humus nutrients in this soil. ♫ Several hydrographic basins of Brazil, such as the Prata, Tocantins, Sao Francisco, need the Cerrado to exist.

Of course the biodiversity of fish in this biome is huge due to this fact - here you have the <i>pacu</i> fish, <i>tucunare</i> fish, <i>piraputanga</i> fish, but unfortunately due to predatory fishing, in which many of these so called "fishermen" utilize explosives to get the fish here, they are reducing and putting the biodiversity of Cerrado rivers even more at risk. ♪ The Cerrado is currently the most damaged Brazilian biome. That's why it's considered a hotspot alongside the Atlantic Forest.

What are hotspots? They are supposed to be regions of the planet with high biodiversity, and are being quickly destroyed. If the rhythm of destruction of the Cerrado stays like now, it will disappear within 10 years - an interesting detail is that the Atlantic Forest needed 5 centuries to have its vegetal coverage damaged and reduced to just 7%.

The Cerrado needed just 5 decades to be devastated and have almost 60% of its original vegetation destroyed. This basically happened for the following reason: We had a coastal occupation of the Atlantic Forest, that's why it was destroyed. The Cerrado was destroyed because of Brazil's inland occupation and that was a process that took many years to happen.

♫ The damaging of the Cerrado starts in the 18th century, with the beginning of the gold rush in this region and certainly this activity ended up contaminating several rivers of the Cerrado, such as this one, with mercury and that caused the siltation of various rivers as well. It turns out that the gold mining activity decreased and we had the emergence of another economical activity on Cerrado, which is the livestock - just so you know, today, 65% of the cultivable areas of this region are intended for livestock. Besides, this region where the Cerrado is located, produces half the meat consumed in Brazil.

Unfortunately this livestock activity has low productivity, low utilization of technology and still utilizes a huge land extension, the infamous extensive livestock that causes much damage here on Cerrado. ♫ Thousands and thousands of hectares have been deforested for pasture production, which feeds the cattle. Many times this pasture is wrongly made, which ends up wearing the soil and then of course you have to deforest new areas to produce more pasture, however during the 70s we had a great boom of deforestation here on Cerrado.

That's because we had the wearing of lands in the south region, as well as in the southeast, which pushed the people, mainly livestock producers, to seek new lands here in the midwest region, where most of the Cerrado biome is located. <i>- "But Jubijubao, isn't the Cerrado soil supposed to be bad? </i> <i>How can you plant something in it?

"</i> Great question Jubi-student! Indeed the Cerrado soil is too bad, as you have learned in our videos, however, we had the green revolution during the 70s, which created various technologies such as fertilizers, which put more nutrients in the soil, including the creation of liming techniques, which add limestone to the soil, so you balance the acidity and of course the Cerrado soil becomes fit for agriculture practices, that's why the producers started to come here. ♫ Of course we have to highlight the importance of livestock activity for the Brazilian economy - a corn plantation like this is not just about what you see, there's a series of industries that are created to process the corn, to manufacture corn-based products and by opening these industries, of course it creates jobs that generate income and that improves the life quality of Brazilians.

Just so you know, one third of the agricultural production comes from from the midwest region, which produces corn, soy, rice, wheat, coffee, sugar cane, so this is a very important region. But unfortunately this is the same region in which we have the Cerrado. It's exactly the creation of new spaces for agricultural and livestock production that's destroying the Cerrado.

Many times this agriculture is done in an irresponsible manner, which ends up quickly degrading the soil. So many times a plantation like that, is done here for 10, 15 years, the soil ends up wearing and you can no longer plant anything in this region, and of course the Cerrado biome won't grow here again because the soil is all modified and entirely damaged. An interesting detail is that plantations like this one here form true green deserts, in other words, they are large areas containing only one vegetal species, case in point, you see large areas containing only corn.

Bear in mind that all this space that has only corn now, used to be Cerrado, so all biodiversity of the Cerrado biome has been lost for corn production. ♪ Here there's another nice example of how it's important to create protected areas. Corn plantation - 20 feet - National Park of Rheas.

I'm pretty sure we would have a nice corn plantation here in this place, if this didn't exist. In this aerial image it's possible to have the actual notion of how much biodiversity is lost, when a Cerrado space is destroyed for agricultural practices. It's worth mentioning that the indiscriminate utilization of pesticides and fertilizers on plantations, ends up contaminating the river waters that exist here on Cerrado - it's worth mentioning that the Cerrado is considered the cradle of waters, because the waters that will supply the main hydrographic basins of Brazil, such as the Tocantins-Araguaia, Parana and Sao Francisco, are born here.

So the collapse of the Cerrado will also cause the collapse of fresh water supply all over Brazil. As long as all Brazilian biomes receive water that was born here on Cerrado. See how tragic the situation in Brasilia DC: There was no problem of water shortage when this city kept the surrouding Cerrado vegetation preserved, but after they deforested everything, guess what - there's water shortage all the time.

Why is that? Of course I'm not here throwing that boring tree-hugger speech, calling for the end of agro-businesses, even because we have to eat and the Brazilian economy depends on the agro-businesses, but I'll give you a heads up: Today, we no longer need to deforest one inch of any Brazilian biome - we can increase the Brazilian agricultural productivity up to 4 times, with the utilization of technologies and some good will, not only regarding agriculture, but also livestock, so there is a solution to increase our productivity and at same time to protect our biomes. ♫ For many years damaging the Cerrado has been justified by profitability of economical activities.

Nowadays, 80% of the remaining Cerrado is somehow changed by men, which means that only 20% of the remaining Cerrado still untouched and these 20% are at serious risk of becoming pasture or soy plantation, that's why the implementation of preserved areas to protect this untouched vegetation should be a priority, that's because less than 1% of the Cerrado is protected in preservation units. It's about time we commove ourselves and move ourselves to protect this Brazilian heritage. Actually, if we do nothing the Cerrado will be destroyed in just 10 years.

It's necessary that the authorities take the initiative, in order to change this situation that happens in this place now. The Cerrado is a great example of how humans utilize nature as a disposable object the whole time - unfortunately, most people are not touched by this Cerrado landscape, they think there's no biodiversity here, hence there's nothing wrong with deforesting it. I sincerely hope that after these videos I was able to touch you and had shown you the importance of preserving this wonderful biome, all in all, needless to say that was a treat to be here with you, a big hug, bye!

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