Currently one of mankind's greatest challenges is to deter the threat to environmental equilibrium. To preserve nature, however, it is first necessary to understand its importance to our lives, to be aware that that we need it not just as mere spectators of its beauty, or as beneficiaries of its scientific potential, but because we are an integral part of it.

An awareness of this interdependent relationship has led Natura to invest in sustainable development and the research of new ways in which to relate to biodiversity. The present should in no way jeopardize the future.

As the name suggests, biodiversity is the sum of all the different forms of life found, from microorganisms such as bacteria, to plants, animals and man, as well as all the relationships and chains of interdependence established between them.

Brazil contains six principal ecosystems, among which the largest tropical forest in the world - the Amazon. Each hectare of forest contains between 100 to 300 different plant species, forming a vast natural laboratory, making Brazil the country with the world's greatest biodiversity.

To complete our biodiversity, people came to Brazil from all five continents, joining the over 350 different indigenous peoples living here when Brazil was discovered.

A large part of these immigrants chose to stay close to the coast, facing the sea. Great cities grew up in the coastal regions and, for many centuries, we were a little forgetful of our interior. There, however, the core of the Brazilian people lived. Living side-by-side with the forest and the plains, the traditional peoples of the backlands continued to cultivate the land as those who would cultivate themselves.

It is from these men and women - who always lived with the land - that we have so much to learn: the secrets of plants, respect for animals, and how to preserve what remains of Brazil's natural heritage.

This wealth of life in Brazil is, nevertheless, under serious threat. The Atlantic Rain Forest, which once stretched all along the country's coast, is today reduced to less than 7% of its original extent. Little remains of the Cerrado (savannas), and the Amazon is also fast losing its forest cover.