Brazilian officials announced last week that the government would seek $1.2 billion in fines against over a dozen companies being investigated for buying beef from farms illegally deforesting or engaging in slave labor. The complaint also implicated Brazil's Institute for the Environment, which was accused of failing to supervise the companies. However, while Brazil has managed to reduce levels of deforestation by 70 percent since 2004, other areas of Brazil may have borne the brunt of the switch away from using deforested areas as grazing lands for livestock. Farmers have begun altering the cerrado, the most biologically rich savanna, which occupies a huge expanse of the high plains of central Brazil on the Atlantic side of the Amazon basin, to turn it into a suitable grazing area. More than 60 percent of the cerrado's 200 million hectares have disappeared in the last two decades. For the story on the beef industry, see http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i2kn13gE_j uV8KXgXAc57p3ZY4qQ?docId=CNG.9baeed4b77985cc23322a6a1edf5ef6e.881. For the story on the cerrado, see http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_cerrado_brazils_other_biodiversity_hotspot_loses_ground/2393/.