Brazil’s marine protected areas fail to meet global conservation goals

Abstract

AbstractReducing species extinctions and expanding protected areas are key goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). To meet these goals, nations should assure a minimum protection of all ecoregions (Target 11) and preserve the most threatened species (Target 12). While the total extent of marine protected areas (MPAs) in Brazil has increased sharply, little is known about MPAs’ capacity in representing the country´s commitments for global conservation goals. Here, we evaluated how well the current system of MPAs represents the geographic range of 118 threatened marine vertebrate species and the eight marine ecoregions in Brazil. We also investigated where unprotected or poorly protected species are concentrated, and whether existing MPAs are prioritizing the species most at risk. Results revealed that half of marine ecoregions have <10% of their area under protection, and therefore that Brazil has failed to meet CBD Aichi Target 11. About 3% of the threatened marine vertebrates remain completely unprotected by MPAs, and most (88.1%) species have less than 10% of their ranges covered by no‐take MPAs. Moreover, coverage provided by MPAs is strongly biased toward species under low threat levels. Our mapping of current conservation gaps highlights where establishing new MPAs could improve the protection of imperilled species and contribute to achieve global conservation goals.