It would, wouldn't it? That's because it had more forest! A lot more actually.

South/southeast Brazil is home to the Mata Atlântica, another absurdly biodiverse biome Brazil used to have. But, being the main point of the conquest added to the high mountains right after the coastline, along other things, most of the forest is gone today.

We lost 85% of the gorgeous forests that marked our south/southest and, unfortunately, are at risk of losing a lot of the north as well. We lost almost 20% in the last 50 years, and are near a tipping point where the Amazon might collapse into a huge savannah.

Even worse, the last 4 years of government were marked by a blatant disregard of the situation and record deforesting. Good news is that prick is out :)

My point being: people need to be held accountable for our forests, and that starts with people thinking we'd look better with more of them.