In the past decades, Brazil made important progress in the conservation of forest ecosystems. Non-forest ecosystems (NFE), in contrast, have been neglected, even though they cover large parts of the country and have biodiversity levels comparable to forests. To avoid losing much of its biodiversity and ecosystem services, conservation and sustainable land use policies in Brazil need to be extended to NFE. A strategy for conservation of Brazil's NFE should encompass the following elements: (1) creation of new large protected areas in NFE; (2) enforcement of legal restrictions of land use; (3) extension of subsidy programs and governance commitments to NFE; (4) improvement of ecosystem management and sustainable use in NFE; and (5) improvement of monitoring of land use change in NFE. If Brazil managed to extend its conservation successes to NFE, it not only would contribute significantly to conservation of its biodiversity, but also could take the lead in conservation of NFE world-wide.

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The recently published report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges high altitude ecosystems in Latin America and elsewhere as some of the most vulnerable to climate change. The Brazilian Panel on Climate Change (PBMC, from the acronym in Portuguese) also recognizes the vulnerability of Brazilian high mountain ecosystems, but points out to a significant gap in data and knowledge. This paper briefly reviews the contents in these reports that refer to high altitude ecosystems and cross-compare with biological data available for such formations in Brazil. Emphasis is given to non-forest ecosystems, namely the so-called campos de altitude, and specific data and knowledge gaps are highlighted. The implementation of the existing policy called National Program for Research and Conservation of Mountain Ecosystems would be an important step to fill this gap.

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