Strengthening Voices for Better Choices in Brazil 13 January
2009 | Downloads - publication Helping to free Acre of illegal
logging Forest governance in Brazil Brazil, the world’s fifth-
largest country, has the greatest extent of forest in the
tropics. This includes nearly a third of the world’s remaining
tropical rainforests, found mainly in the Amazon Basin. Partly
because of its size, Brazil is the world’s leading
megabiodiversity country, with more than 56,000 recorded
vascular plant species, 1,600 bird species and 77 primates.
Deforestation rates in Brazil vary among the major forest
biomes. The loss of theAtlantic rainforest, for example, has
largely been halted and in places is being reversed. The dry
forests of the central cerrado savannas, however, are shrinking
at a faster rate than the more famous Amazon rainforests.
Deforestation in the Amazon has declined in recent years, owing
to greater government action and falling prices for beef and
soybeans. As prices have rebounded, however, so the pace of