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

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
prioritisation. Location: Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Brazil,
Southwest Atlantic Ocean Methods: We developed a prioritisation 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 hotspots 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.