Biodiversity Conservation

Biodiversity conservation is critical for ensuring the diversity of living organisms, including terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Diverse assemblages of organisms are collectively the guardians of nature's services to humans, such as clean water, abundant food, a stable climate and culture. Brazil is the most biodiverse country in the world. The International Institute for Sustainability works to conserve biodiversity through its projects, considering not only its environmental but also its social and economic values.

Climate change

Global climate change is one of the biggest problems facing humanity today. The complexity of the scientific understanding of this phenomenon generates uncertainty, which makes it difficult to identify adaptation changes. IIS's work on climate change has focus on scaling adaptation, especially in cities.

Ecosystem restoration

Ecosystem restoration is vital to reducing and reversing historical human impacts on the environment, and can mitigate climate change, conserve biodiversity, and improve the quality of life for society through providing ecosystem services. A science-based approach to ecosystem restoration is critical for guiding restoration, and requires interdisciplinary research from theoretical and practical approaches. The importance of this work has grown exponentially in recent years.

Sustainable development

IIS's mission is to promote the transition to sustainability by contributing to the balance between socio-economic development and biodiversity conservation and rational use of natural resources, with the aim of meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising future generations.

Sustainable Land Use

Soil is the basis for the development of diverse life forms and plays a critical role for society by providing ecosystem services. In addition, it is full of stories that recount the way human beings have interacted with the earth. Over the last few centuries, this relationship between man and soil has become increasingly problematic, resulting in a high level of landscape transformation and degradation. These changes in land use and land cover have compromised the functioning of ecosystems with impacts on biogeochemical and hydrological cycles, which directly affect the climate and the provisioning of ecosystem services.

Economic Analysis

The projects developed by IIS are intended to strengthen the balance between the economy and the environment. The work of IIS includes research, planning, management and promotional activities in the public and private sectors, focusing on the relationship between ecological, social and economic systems. Economic analysis is used as a tool to optimize the means of production and public policies, as well as value and conserve natural heritage under a sustainable development perspective.

Public policies

IIS supports the formulation of public policies focused on sustainability, as well as the implementation of practical actions, working in partnership with public sector agencies such as the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment.

Spatial intelligence

Whether identifying areas at high risk of future deforestation or areas that have the highest value for conservation or restoration, landscape modelling and monitoring allows the identification of patterns and trends of social and ecological systems. These trends can provide quantitative statistics and mapped scenarios that directly inform decision making.

Biodiversity Conservation

In 2010, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) established 20 Aichi Biodiversity Goals (CBD, 2010). These goals are aimed at reducing pressures on biodiversity and establishing concrete actions to reduce their loss.

The four strategic objectives which the goals are divided into include:
1. incorporating biodiversity discussions into government and society;
2. reducing direct pressures on biodiversity;
3. improving the state of biodiversity through its protection;
4. and increasing the benefits of biodiversity and ecosystem services for all.
The targets should be reached by 2020, when new actions will be proposed.

Brazil, in addition to being megadiverse, has one of the highest carbon sequestration rates in the world (see Global Significance subsection), playing a crucial role in biodiversity conservation and the provision of local, national as well as global ecosystem services.

Today in Brazil there are 120,000 species of invertebrates and approximately 8,930 species of vertebrates. Among vertebrates, there are 734 species of mammals (153 endemic and 110 endangered), 1,982 bird species (222 endemic and 234 endangered), 732 reptile species (147 endemic and 80 endangered), 973 amphibians (584 endemic and 41 endangered) and 4,509 fish species (409 endangered) (MMA 2016, ICMBio 2017 b; Table 2). In terms of flora diversity, the country is the richest in the world, with 46,223 species, of which 19,503 are endemic and 2,953 are endangered. Brazil is home to two global biodiversity hotspots: the Atlantic Forest and the Cerrado, both comprising 72% of the country's endangered species.

In addition, Brazil also has global relevance in combating climate change, as it is the largest repository of forest carbon on the planet (Zomer et al., 2016).

Crops can also contribute to carbon stocks, where Brazil is also the world leader with the largest total stocks (Zomer et al., 2016). In 2000, these areas were estimated to supply 6.8 billion tons of carbon. In 2010, this volume increased by almost 14%, reaching 7.7 billion tons. Part of the gain can be associated with public policy incentives to implement good agricultural practices (adoption of agroforestry approaches) and livestock practices. In addition, it may be associated with abandonment or use of fallow periods in degraded pastures. Therefore, it is important to encourage the proper management of areas dedicated to agriculture and livestock, contributing to increased carbon stocks and mitigation of climate change.

Among the main threats to biodiversity in Brazil are unsustainable agriculture, unsustainable management of native vegetation, poaching and spread of invasive alien species.

Although many initiatives have been developed to overcome these threats, there are a number of factors that contribute to their occurrence that still need to be addressed in order for conservation to be effective. The main factors are poor knowledge about the conservation value of private areas, low institutional capacity and inadequate governance and perverse subsidies.
In this context, IIS and the Brazilian Ministry of Environment are running the GEF Private Areas Project, which has the UN Environment as its executing agency and is financed by the Global Environment Fund (GEF). The objective of the project is to contribute to conservation in private areas, while its short and medium term goals include expanding sustainable landscape management and contributing to the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services in these areas.

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Related collaborators (9)

Agnieszka Ewa Latawiec

Executive Director

Bernardo Baeta Neves Strassburg

Executive Director

Robin Chazdon

Senior Associate Researcher

Aline Rodrigues

Research Assistant

Helena Nery Alves Pinto

Environmental Analyst

Lara Monteiro

Research Assistant

Renato Crouzeilles

Associate

Viviane Dib

Research Assistant

Veronica Maioli

Postdoctoral Researcher

Related Partners (9)

Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Federal Republic of Germany Banco Mundial Ministério do Meio Ambiente - Governo Federal (MMA) Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) Secretaria do Meio Ambiente do Estado de São Paulo - SMA/SP UNEP/WCMC Global Environment Fund Forest Ecosystem Restoration Initiative Convention on Biological Diversity