Qualla: Cerrado https://qualla.com/cerrado en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Cerrado https://qualla.com/cerrado Cerrado: Introduction https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Morrodoouro.eco.br, CC BY-SA 4.0. Fire made the Cerrado. Every dry season, across what scientists call the biologically richest savanna on Earth, lightning or indigenous hunters or ranchers set the grass alight, and the ecosystem responds the way it has for thousands of years: thick corky bark protects the tree trunks, dormant buds at the base of plants push up fresh shoots from the ash, seed pods crack open in the heat. Remove fire, and the Cerrado chokes on its own undergrowth. The World Wide Fund for Nature named this biome the biologically richest savanna in the world - around 10,000 plant species, eleven mammals found nowhere else, and thirty percent of Brazil's biodiversity packed into twenty-one percent of its land area. Most people have never heard of it.

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Image: Morrodoouro.eco.br | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Cerrado: The Shape of the Savanna https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Andreza Oliveira Borges, CC BY-SA 3.0. Stretched across central Brazil at the core of the Planalto - the Brazilian Highlands - the Cerrado spills into eleven states: Goias, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piaui, Bahia, Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, Parana, and the Federal District. It slips briefly ac...

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Image: Andreza Oliveira Borges | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-the-shape-of-the-savanna.mp3 0:06 2 full Cerrado: What Lives in Fire https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Nortondefeis, CC BY-SA 4.0. Around 800 tree species have been cataloged in the Cerrado, many of them adapted to conditions that would kill trees elsewhere. Three species of the genus Qualea dominate much of the canopy, their thick cork-like bark insulating living tissue from surface fires hot enough to melt...

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Image: Nortondefeis | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-what-lives-in-fire.mp3 0:06 3 full Cerrado: Embrapa's Line of Lime https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Angeladepaula, CC BY-SA 3.0. Until the 1960s, the Cerrado was agriculturally useless. Its soils are ancient, acidic, phosphorus-starved - the kind of ground European settlers had dismissed for three centuries. Then researchers at Brazil's agricultural agency, Embrapa, discovered that lime, phosphate, and the...

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Image: Angeladepaula | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-embrapas-line-of-lime.mp3 0:06 4 full Cerrado: The People of the Plateau https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Isac rodrigues do nascimento, CC BY-SA 4.0. Before the soybeans arrived, the Cerrado belonged to the Xavante, Karaja, Ava-Canoeiro, Kraho, Xerente, and Xakriaba peoples, among others, some of whom practiced slash-and-burn coivara agriculture while others remained hunter-gatherers. They used fire deliberately to freshen the...

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Image: Isac rodrigues do nascimento | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-the-people-of-the-plateau.mp3 0:06 5 full Cerrado: The Water Towers of South America https://qualla.com/cerrado/ Photo credit Milermachado, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Cerrado is a hydrological giant. Its headwaters feed three of the continent's major river systems: the Parana-Paraguay flowing south to the Atlantic near Buenos Aires, the Araguaia-Tocantins flowing north into the Amazon delta, and the Sao Francisco draining the Northeast. Th...

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Image: Milermachado | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/v/w/0/cerrado-wp/6vw0-cerrado-the-water-towers-of-south-america.mp3 0:06 6 full