A blueprint for securing Brazil's marine biodiversity and supporting the achievement of global conservation goals

Abstract

Aim: As a step towards providing support for an ecological approach to strengthening marine protected areas (MPAs) and meeting international commitments, this study combines cumulative impact assessment and conservation planning approach to undertake a large-scale spatial prioritization. Location: Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Brazil, Southwest Atlantic Ocean. Methods: We developed a prioritization approach to protecting different habitat types, threatened species ranges and ecological connectivity, while also mitigating the impacts of multiple threats on biodiversity. When identifying priorities for conservation, we accounted for the co-occurrence of 24 human threats and the distribution of 161 marine habitats and 143 threatened species, as well as their associated vulnerabilities. Additionally, we compared our conservation priorities with MPAs proposed by local stakeholders. Results: We show that impacts to habitats and species are widespread and identify hot spots of cumulative impacts on inshore and offshore areas. Industrial fisheries, climate change and land-based activities were the most severe threats to biodiversity. The highest priorities were mostly found towards the coast due to the high cumulative impacts found in nearshore areas. As expected, our systematic approach showed a better performance on selecting priority sites when compared to the MPAs proposed by local stakeholders without a typical conservation planning exercise, increasing the existing coverage of MPAs by only 7.9%. However, we found that proposed MPAs still provide some opportunities to protect areas facing high levels of threats. Main conclusions: The study presents a blueprint of how to embrace a comprehensive ecological approach when identifying strategic priorities for conservation. We advocate protecting these crucial areas from degradation in emerging conservation efforts is key to maintain their biodiversity value. | 199 MAGRIS et Al.

The Use of Acoustic Telemetry to Monitor Fish Species in Marine Protected Areas: A Systematic Review With Notes on Brazilian Perspectives

“…In Brazil, effectiveness of MPAs in terms of increase in the abundance and biomass of fish inside its boundaries has been relatively well documented Halpern & Ferreira, 2006;Prates et al, 2007;Anderson et al, 2014), but reports on benefits through spillover to adjacent areas and effectiveness in terms of biodiversity protection and fisheries benefits are scarce. Also, connectivity of Brazilian MPAs through larval dispersion has been discussed (Endo et al, 2019), as well as its implication on the design of a representative MPA system (Magris et al, 2020).…”

Overview of sea conservation policies in Brazil and social and environmental impacts in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…A recent study by Magris et al (2021) in Brazil revealed priority areas for marine conservation (Figure 1). The authors reveal that industrial fishing, climate change and terrestrial activities, linked to the production of waste, were the greatest threats to biodiversity, and stress the importance of a comprehensive ecological approach when identifying strategic conservation priorities.…”

Effectiveness of Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas in the Atlantic Ocean for Reducing Fishing Activities

“…These islands have among the highest fish biomass across Brazilian reefs (Morais et al, 2017), notable endemism (Simon et al, 2013;Pinheiro et al, 2020), and globally threatened fauna (Almeida et al, 2011;Duarte-Neto et al, 2012). Despite their biodiversity significance, both regions are also threatened by commercial fisheries and climate change (Magris et al, 2020). The MPAs comprise the territorial sea and exclusive economic zones of the islands.…”

“…For this last set of analyses, I compared each measure of fishing pressure calculated as above against the same metrics associated with cells randomly selected across Brazil's EEZ, and limited to the corresponding total size of one set of large-scale MPAs (i.e., 455,000 km 2 ). I generated the random selection of cells as described in Magris et al (2020). I restricted the cells selection within other areas of Brazil's EEZ because international waters can have different fisheries management regulations.…”

“…I excluded fully-protected MPAs from the random selection as they might be effective at restricting fishing activities within their boundaries. I also allowed coastal areas to be selected because the commercial fishing fleet using the assessed gears is widely distributed across the entire Brazil's EEZ (Magris et al, 2020).…”