On this episode we look at how the largest and most biodiverse tropical savanna on Earth, Brazil's Cerrado, may finally be getting the conservation attention it needs.

We’re joined by Mariana Siqueira, a landscape architect who’s helping to find and propagate the Cerrado’s natural plant life, and who is collaborating with ecologists researching the best way to restore the savanna habitat.

Arnaud Desbiez also joins the show: he's founder and president of a Brazilian wildlife research NGO who describes the Cerrado as an important part of the range for the giant armadillo, an ecosystem engineer which creates habitat for many other species. So conserving their population will have positive effects for the savanna's overall biodiversity, he argues.

Read more about the Giant Armadillo Conservation Project here & view all of our recent coverage of the Cerrado here.

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Episode artwork: A giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), photo courtesy of Giant Armadillo Conservation Program.

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