“We’re gonna die!” Do Brazilian conservation units provide protection to the Amazonian chelonians?

Abstract

The creation of conservation areas (CAs) is not always based on science; consequently, some aquatic species may not receive the same level of protection as terrestrial ones. The objective was to identify priority areas for the conservation of chelonians in the Brazilian Amazon basin and assess the contribution of CAs, distinguishing between Full Protection Areas, Sustainable Use Areas, and Indigenous Lands for group protection. The entire species modeling procedure was carried out using Species Distribution Models (SDMs). Data points were obtained from platforms such as SpeciesLink, GBIF, the Hydroatlas database, and WorldClim for bioclimatic variables adjusted for algorithms like Maximum Entropy, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine, and Gaussian-Bayesian. Indigenous lands cover more than 50% of the distribution areas of chelonians species in the Brazilian Amazon. Protection areas with higher conservation importance (Full Protection Areas and Sustainable Use Areas) hold less than 15% of the combined species distribution. Researchers face significant challenges when making decisions with models, especially in conservation efforts involving diverse taxa that differ significantly from one another within a group of individuals.