At the time of its discovery, the vegetation of Brazil was characterized by forested areas, covering about 90% of its territory. They were represented in the categories equatorial, tropical, subtropical, savannas and scrublands. The remaining 10% were primarily grassland formations (Magnanini, 1961, Mizuguchi et al., 1981). In the Cerrado Biome, data on the state of the vegetation point to a loss of native vegetation between 38,9% (MMA/SBF, [sd]) and 54,9% by the year 2002 (MACHADO et al., 2004).
As ISA (2008), the difference between these data relates to the difficulty of mapping the different ecosystems in the Cerrado, especially in differentiating between natural and planted pastures. The dynamics of deforestation in the Cerrado is initiated by the association between farmer and coal dealer, in which the second is paid with the vegetation used for the manufacture of charcoal, and the first is processed by removing the vegetation, which reduces their costs of incorporation land for cultivation.
