Conservation International, an environmental group, has predicted that Brazil's Savannah is likely to disappear by 2030 if steps are not taken to prevent its deforestation. According to Nature, almost 20,000 square kilometers of this ancient grassland is being destroyed annually to make room for crops such as soy, wheat and cotton. The Savannah, also called the Cerrado, is said to be the world's largest continuous area of land suitable for agriculture. It is also home to a huge range of biological diversity, but now is in danger because of improper planning, claims Ricardo Machado and his colleagues at Conservation International. " It's not aesthetically beautiful, so people don't care as much," a spokesperson for the World Land Trust, a British conservation charity, was quoted as saying. Conservation International's researchers discovered the magnitude of the Savannah's plight through satellite photographs and found that around 1.5 per cent of the region's 1.3 million square kilometers of grasslands was being cleared each year. Conservationists and other experts are meeting this week in Alto Paraiso, near Brasilia, to discuss the problem. Proposed strategies include restricting development to the areas around existing transport links, and more efficient use of current agricultural land.