Management Effectiveness of Brazil's Federal Protected Areas

CD

World Wildlife Federation - WWF

The Nature Conservancy

The leading response to environmental challenges has been the creation of protected areas, yet they constantly are jeopardized by problems of staffing, sustainable finance and local development. Documentation of alternative strategies that could enhance success of protected area management is still at a nascent stage. To evaluate such strategies we built an on-line questionnaire to be answered by all Federal protected areas in Brazil. Just 12.8% confirmed and explained the strategies sought. Partnerships seemed to underpin most strategies cited. We believe that the low percentage of managers seeking alternative strategies is a result of the increasing lack of a strong, coherent and comprehensive policy for protected areas in Brazil, which will only change if a new breakthrough on conservation policy is made.

Natural resources are under pressure worldwide; loss of biodiversity stands out (Pimm et al., 2014). The leading response to such challenge has been the creation of protected areas (PA). Today, worldwide, 15.4% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 3.4% of oceans are protected, covering a total of 20.6 million km2 (Juffe-Bignoli et al., 2014). Brazil has the largest PA system in the world; currently, there are 1930 locally-termed as Conservation Units in Brazil that cover 1,513,366 km2, which represents 17.20% of terrestrial and inland water areas and 1.5% oceanic areas (Ministério do Meio Ambiente, 2015), and 585 Indigenous Lands that cover 1,131,211 km2 which represents 13.2% of the Brazilian Territory (FUNAI, 2015).

However, while PAs are a well-established tool for biodiversity conservation, on the other hand, they face serious questions as to whether they meet their targets or not. There are several concerns, such as negative changes in conservation status through downsizing, downgrading and degazettement in recent years (Bernard et al., 2014), reduction in game populations inside National Parks (Ogutu et al., 2011) and overuse of natural resources of Sustainable Use PAs (Peres et al., 2003). This negative scenario raises the urgent need to establish the main struggles of PA management and identify strategies which could bring them closer to targets.

Analysis of effectiveness and its challenges can be used as a good indicator to better understand PA management difficulties. The most widespread of such analysis is the Rapid Assessment and Prioritization of Protected Area Management (RAPPAM) (Ervin, 2003). In Brazil the methodology was applied twice in the federal PAs (2005–2006 and 2010). In the first one, Staffing emerged as the main struggle; in the second, Sustainable Finance was the main challenge (ICMBio and WWF-Brasil, 2015). These results show us that Staffing and Sustainable Finance need a great attention from managers, policy makers and other stakeholders to tackle conservation targets in PAs.

Although not directly addressed in the RAPPAM analysis, a third axis highly important to the effectiveness of PA is Local Development. Scholars have widely reported negative outcomes due to physical and economic displacement of local people imposed by the creation of PA (Adams and Hutton, 2007). Some argue that, to solve these problems, PA managers should seek participative approach and co-management with local communities (Homewood et al., 2013). Therefore, even though there are some contrary opinions (Soulé, 2013), Local Development is a theme that cannot be left out of such discussions.

While the main challenges are more or less understood, on the other hand, the strategies to solve them are not. Legally all PAs in Brazil need to have a management plan for the reserve and an Advisory Board and Deliberative Council set up. Be that as it may, the understanding of strategies being applied in day to day of PA management, the documentation of such achievements, and the key issues faced are still at a nascent stage (Kothari et al., 2013). Moreover, first, even though the literature present us with a variety of possible strategies to better manager a PA according to its specific goals, we do not have a clear idea as to whether it is possible to put them into practice in context of the Brazilian legal and bureaucratic reality. Secondly, although innovative strategies, whether by the adaptation of known strategies in new realities, or creation of new tools, might be applying in the day-to-day management of PAs, have yet to undergo systematic evaluation for the Brazilian Federal Protected Area System.