Avaliação de resultados em pesquisa e políticas públicas para conservação no Brasil

Abstract

The number of programs aimed at biodiversity and ecosystem conservation has grown in Brazil and in the world. Besides local policies, international agreements were also established to protect the world biological diversity. Despite this progress, most conservation initiatives were made based on opinions and usual methods instead of evidences of effectiveness. Not only conservation policies must be based on appropriate criteria, but they should also be planned to produce outcomes whose success can be assessed. In this thesis we aimed to evaluate the efficiency of conservation initiatives in preserving biodiversity, focusing on Brazil. In the first chapter we reviewed the literature on habitat loss and degradation to measure the gap between conservation theory and practice. We find that despite the growing number of scientific publications, there is still a gap between knowing and doing that can lead to ineffective conservation programs. We suggest that researchers and practitioners come together to bridge this gap. In the second chapter we show that the protected areas system has strong biases and that is not representative for about half of the existing habitats in Brazil. This scenario is the result of protection aimed at minimizing costs and conflicts with extractive uses instead of strategic and systematic planning. We discussed the reasons that led to this scenario and the paths to be followed. In the third chapter we estimate the probable losses and gains of biodiversity and ecosystem services if the new Brazilian Forest Code is properly enforced. We also discuss the challenges associated with law enforcement and present conservation opportunities.