Being the biggest country in South America, Brazil is packed with natural treasures. The world’s largest wetlands – Pantanal – is located on the west of the country while the central part of it is occupied with Cerrado – tropical savanna. Caatinga desert lies in the northeastern part of Brazil, southeastern part houses Atlantic rainforests and southern – Araucaria pine forests. All these looks really impressive not even mentioning Amazon rainforest occupying more than 40% of country’s territory.
Amazon Rain Forest
The Amazon is considered to be the most biodefense place in the world. It contains about one-quarter of the Earth’s fresh water and is home to one-third of the world’s species and the world’s largest river Amazon. Even though there is also another rain forest in the country – Atlantic rain forest, Amazon still remains the most popular one. Atlantic Rain Forest is 20 years older than Amazon.
Atlantic Rain Forest
This incredible place is home to 20 000 species of different plants. New species of flora and fauna are being discovered. The forest structure contains canopies supporting rich vegetation mix. There is a great diversity of mosses, ferns, bromeliads, lianas and orchids. The part of the forest can be seen in national parks like:
- Parque Nacional do Iguaçu
- Parque Nacional da Tijuca in Rio de Janeir
- Parque Nacional do Itatiaia
Caatinga
This very charming forest occupies more than 10% of country’s territory and is inhabited by more than 12 million people. The climate here is semi-arid, it is a very dry place in Brazil. Rainfalls here are irregular and harvesting is pretty difficult. There are only a few drinkable water sources in the area.
Pantanal
It is a tropical wetland – the area between Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia which is a home to incredible amount of species of reptiles and birds. Thanks to floods aquatic life here is rich; it has more than 265 kinds of fish. Pantanal has such species as the Brazilian jaguar, Piranha fish and many others.
Fernando de Noronha
Fernando de Noronha is a famous national park. It is located in an archipelago which consists of more than 20 islands. The biggest and the only inhabited island is Vila dos Remédios. To get there a visitor needs to get a permission and he or she can stay there up to 7 days.
Cerrado
It is the most biologically rich savanna in the world. It feeds three major water basins in South America: the São Francisco, Paraguay and Amazon Rivers.
Cerrado has more than 10,000 species of plants, 45% of which can only be found in Cerrado. This extremely beautiful savanna stretches almost across 500 million acres of Brazil. Its territory is nearly three times the size of Texas.