Producing a Red List of Ecosystems for the Brazilian Cerrado

Land clearance is a key driver of biodiversity loss. This is a particular challenge in the Brazilian Cerrado, the world's most biodiverse savanna biome and a region experiencing a rapid expansion of agriculture. To inform habitat conservation and restoration actions, we used the Red List of Ecosystems (RLE) framework to identify threatened ecosystems within the Cerrado. This biome is divided into 20 ecoregions, and we subdivided each ecoregion into forest, savanna, grassland, and wetland ecosystems. We used remote sensing data from 1985 to 2020 to measure and predict the distribution of each ecosystem and assess its risk of collapse based on Criterion A2b (reduction in geographic distribution over any 50-year period), Criterion B1 (limited extent of occurrence), and Criterion B2 (limited area of occupancy). Of the 80 ecosystems comprising the Cerrado, we assessed 12 as Endangered and 43 as Vulnerable. Most of these threatened ecosystems were identified under Criterion A2b, while Criterion B identified a smaller subset of spatially restricted ecosystems, particularly wetlands, underscoring the importance of applying more than one criterion in the assessment process. By using the Red List of Ecosystems as an international standard, we provide the first globally comparable analysis of the state of the Cerrado, showing that nearly three-quarters of the region's ecosystems are at risk of collapse. This information provides a baseline to inform local policy and practice, helping to conserve biodiversity and maintain ecosystem services within this globally important region.