CERRADO, Brazil – During the past 40 years, more than half of Brazil’s Cerrado plateau, home to forests, a vast variety of flora, jaguars, blue macaws and giant armadillos, has been taken over by cattle ranchers, soybean farmers and sugarcane fields, The Washington Post reports. Sugarcane provides the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

Worldwide demand for ethanol has contributed to the deforestation of the wild savannas. “Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon,” John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International, told the newspaper. “If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity.”

The Brazilian government and large agribusiness companies contend that expanding soybean and sugarcane planting would not necessarily devastate the Cerrado, saying the farmers plant on wastelands and former cattle pastures.

However, environmental groups counter that ranchers are moving farther into the wild areas of the Cerrado in search of cattle pastures, as the available farmland is taken over by soybeans and sugarcane. “There are ranchers substituting sugarcane for cattle in the Sao Paulo area, for instance, and displacing cattle to the state of Bahia, both in the Cerrado. So what is the point?” questioned Ricardo Machado, author of a study about the Cerrado for Conservation International.

Farmers are seeking to expand fields of sugarcane and soybeans in order to meet the demands of the ethanol boom. Touted by environmentalists as a better than corn for ethanol production, sugarcane ethanol also costs half as much to produce.