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It's called the Cerrado, Portuguese for "closed," and for nearly all of human history this vast tropical savanna in central Brazil seems to have been shut off from the rest of the world.
此地名为塞拉多，即葡萄牙语的“闭塞”一词，而在几乎占到人类历史全长的岁月里，巴西中部这片广大的热带稀树草原似乎真与世界其他部分隔绝开来。
People do live there; hunter-gatherer groups, overcoming the formidable wilds, have roamed the Cerrado since the Stone Age.
居民却也是有的；狩猎-采集部落自石器时代就在塞拉多地区游走，克服严峻的蛮荒环境而求存。
And in colonial times, those escaping slavery often disappeared behind the hills, where they built tight-knit communities, unlocked the land's subtle gifts, and settled in. Otherwise, across centuries, hardly anyone ventured inside.
在欧洲人殖民时代，逃离奴役的原住民常常避走于深山密林，到这里结成紧密守望的村社，开凿土地的隐秘物产，定居下来。除此之外，千百年来几乎再没有人冒险走进塞拉多。
The terrain was repellent to visitors, practically impossible to traverse.
这个地带堪称生人勿近，几乎是不可能穿越的。
Much of the Cerrado is a dense, tangled mess of stunted trees and shrubs, the whole place crawling with snakes.
塞拉多的大片领地是幽密交缠的矮树和灌木，蛇虫遍地。
It pales in lushness to the mighty Amazon rainforest to the north, the green lungs of the Earth.
论繁茂，它远不及北边遮天蔽日的地球之肺--亚马孙雨林。
Even some scientists who study the Cerrado call it ugly; the common term for its scrubland is -- "dirty field."
就连有些把塞拉多当研究课题的科学家也称之为丑陋，说起它的灌木丛，通用的叫法为“腌臜地”。
But the main reason the Cerrado was ignored beyond Indigenous peoples and those seeking refuge is that no one could find money in it -- no hardwoods, no diamonds, no oil.
但塞拉多不被土著族群和避难者以外的民众看重的主要原因却是：没人能在这里找出生财之道。没有硬木材，没有钻石，没有石油。
The soil is highly acidic, deadly to most non-native plants, and during the six-month dry season the land is often ravaged by fire.
土壤酸度很高，令大多数非原生植物 品种无法存活，而长达六个月的旱季又常遭野火。
Until the mid-20th century, the Cerrado was dismissed by the capitalist world as a wasteland. Best to leave it closed and move on.
直到20世纪中期，塞拉多都是被资本主义世界蔑视的废土，最好的对待方式就是置之不理，由得它继续闭塞。
In the 1950s, Brazil found a use for it. The nation, leaping into the global economy, decided to construct a new capital city, a monument to Brazilian progress, in the center of the country.
20世纪50年代，巴西找到了塞拉多的一种用途。这个投身全球经济的国家，决定在国境中央建造一座新的首都，作为巴西发展的丰碑。
So a hunk of the Cerrado, smack in the middle, was cleared, and Brasília rose up.
于是刚好坐落于中部地区的塞拉多被扫清了一大块，代之以拔地而起的巴西利亚。
Five million people now live there; only S?o Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte are bigger.
如今有500万人住在那里，城市规模在全国仅次于圣保罗、里约热内卢、贝洛奥里藏特。
Then, in the 1970s, came a more sweeping transformation.
接着来到1970年代，兴起了一场波及范围更大的土地改造。
Brazilian agricultural scientists working in a government lab cooked up a fertilizer, packed with lime, that modified the harsh Cerrado soil and enabled cash crops to grow.
供职于国家实验室的巴西农学家开发出一种石灰含量很高的化肥，能调节严酷的塞拉多土壤环境，使经济作物得以生长。
Industrial watering systems could counteract the dry season, and fire brigades would snuff out the flames. The Cerrado was open for business.
工业灌溉系统可以应付旱季，消防队负责扑灭野火。塞拉多打开门做生意了。
Bulldozers and tractors rolled in, and thousands of square miles of scrubby Cerrado were scraped clean.
推土机和拖拉机隆隆跟进，千百里塞拉多灌丛被铲平。
Corn, sugarcane, and especially soybeans were planted, then trucked across the country to seaports.
种下玉米、甘蔗和重点扶植的大豆，收获用卡车运往国境另一边的海港。
China, the United States, and Europe bought them up, and the land clearing intensified.
中国、美国和欧洲的买家反应热烈，清理土地的行动继续加剧。
The largest agricultural corporations in the world established massive factory farms there. The Brazilian economy roared.
全球顶级规模的农产企业在塞拉多建起巨型工厂化养殖场，巴西经济高歌猛进。
More land was churned up; there seemed no limit: The Cerrado's size is Texas times three.
新的土地不断清出，似乎无有穷尽：塞拉多的面积是得克萨斯的三倍。
The area, according to a 2021 report from the World Bank, has "the greatest agricultural potential on the planet."
世界银行2021年的一份报告称，该地区拥有“地球上最巨大的农业潜力”。
Along with government workers and farmhands, a new generation of biologists, many lured by the science department at the University of Brasília, also came to the Cerrado, curious about this relatively unknown region, always considered less worthy of study than the Amazon.
随着政府职工和农业人手进驻塞拉多的还有新一代生物学家，其中许多是冲着巴西利亚大学的科研部门而来；他们对这片一向被认为研究价值不如亚马孙的陌生土地感到好奇。
Over the past two decades, scientific attention has focused on the area even as it has shifted toward becoming an ecological "sacrifice zone" -- what land-use experts call a place, lacking strong environmental protection, that caters to human consumption. And the Cerrado's great secrets have emerged.
因此，过去至今的20年里，即便塞拉多处在成为“生态牺牲区”（在土地用途划分中优先考虑人类消费、缺少有力环境保护措施的区域）的转变过程中，它受到的科研关注并不少，而其最大的秘密终于显现。
Turning away most humans for millennia appears to have been an ideal strategy for preserving extraordinary biodiversity.
在数千年的时光里令绝大多数人类望而却步，似乎成了保有超然生物多样性的理想策略。
The Cerrado, researchers from the University of Brasília and elsewhere have tallied, is home to more than 11,000 species of plants and trees, 40 percent of which exist nowhere else.
巴西利亚大学和其他机构的研究者在塞拉多清点出来的生物资源包括约1.1万个植物物种（其中40%不见于任何其他地区）。
There are 800 bird species, 1,200 fish species, and 90,000 insect species.
这里也有800种鸟类、1200种鱼和9万种昆虫。
The golden-furred, stilt-legged maned wolf prowls the Cerrado, as does the giant anteater, which grows up to seven feet long, not including its two-foot tongue.
稀有的走兽包括金 色皮毛、四肢细长如踩高跷的鬃狼和能长到2米多长（这还没算60厘米长舌）的大食蚁兽。
There are wide populations of bees, snakes, lizards, bats, and butterflies.
蜂类、蛇、 蜥蜴、蝙蝠、蝴蝶的种群极为壮大。
About 5 percent of Earth's animal and plant species are thought to live in the Cerrado, the biologically richest savanna in the world.
据估计，全球约5%的动植物物种在塞拉多都有分布，它是世界上生物丰富性最高的草原。
