Nature representation in South American protected areas: country contrasts and conservation priorities

Abstract

Background South America faces strong environmental pressures as a result of agriculture and infrastructure expansion and also of demographic growth, demanding immediate action to preserve natural assets by establishing protected areas. Currently, 7.1% of the (sub)continent is under strict conservation categories (I to IV, IUCN), but the spatial distribution of these 1.3 × 106 km2 is poorly understood. We evaluated the representation of nature within the networks of protected areas, map conservation priorities and assess demographic, economic or geopolitical causes of existing protection patterns. Methods We characterized nature representation by looking at two components: the extent and the equality of protection. The first refers to the fraction of territory under protection, while the second refers to the homogeneity in the distribution along natural conditions of this protected fraction. We characterized natural conditions by either 113 biogeographical units (specifically, ecoregions) or a series of limited and significant climatic, topographic and edaphic traits. We analyzed representation every ten years since 1960 at national and continental levels. In the physical approach, histograms allowed us to map the degree of conservation priorities. Finally, we ranked the importance of different economic or geopolitical variables driving the observed distributions with a random forest technique. Results Nature representation varied across countries in spite of its priority in conservation agendas. In Brazil, Peru and Argentina there are still natural conditions with no formal protection, while in Bolivia and Venezuela, protected areas incorporate the natural diversity in a more balanced manner. As protected networks have increased their extent, so did their equality across and within countries over time. Our maps revealed as top continental priorities the southern temperate, subhumid and fertile lowland environments, and other country-specific areas. Protection extent was generally driven by a low population density and isolation, while other variables like distance to frontiers, were relevant only locally (e.g., in Argentina). Discussion Our description of the spatial distribution of protected areas can help societies and governments to improve the allocation of conservation efforts. We identified the main limitations that future conservation efforts will face, as protection was generally driven by the opportunities provided by low population density and isolation. From a methodological perspective, the physical approach reveals new properties of protection and provides tools to explore nature representation at different spatial, temporal and conceptual levels, complementing the traditional ones based on biodiversity or biogeographical attributes.

The lowland seasonally dry subtropical forests in central Argentina: vegetation types and a call for conservation

“…less than 0.03%; Brown et al 2006). We should note that these low values are in line with the fact that natural areas developed on flat productive lands have traditionally been excluded from conservation strategies, both at the global (Pressey et al 2002) and at the regional level (Baldi et al 2018).…”

Nature protection across countries: Do size and power matter?

“…These biases can be attributed to the fact that protected areas are frequently established on territories that face little human interventions and have comparatively low opportunity-costs, at least at the time of their establishment (Joppa and Pfaff 2009, Baldi et al 2017, Baldi et al 2019). One possibility to overcome these problems of imbalances among and within countries is that international representation goals are not established at the country level but at the level of ecoregion or physical environments (Aksenov et al 2015, Baldi et al 2019). In this way, larger and more powerful and of smaller and less powerful countries should agree on multilateral strategies of conservation of their natural conditions regardless of the protected national extent.…”

Transformative governance for linking forest and landscape restoration to human well-being in Latin America

“…Some areas where forest cover initially increased but later decreased are present, indicating that some or all gains in forest cover in the early 2000s have been subsequently lost, even ten times more often than the sustained increases in forest cover (Schwartz et al 2020). Also, the extent and representativeness of protected areas are still far from those suggested by international conservation targets (Baldi et al 2019), and complementary public policies for reducing the conversion of natural ecosystems (e.g. land-use planning) are generally weakly enforced (e.g.…”