Conservation and Management of Reef Ecosystems

This chapter focuses on discussing the main strategies for the conservation and management of Brazilian reefs. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are one of the key components of reef conservation. Although the existing system of MPAs covers 15.3% of the total reef area, the reality of this figure is misleading because only a fraction of reef habitats is covered by no-take MPAs (3.6%), and several reef types have no coverage by fully-protected MPAs. Discrepancies between the amount of coverage by all MPAs and what is covered by no-take ones were stronger on the Northeastern continental shelf and decreased towards oceanic, deep reef areas, thus confirming the strong protection bias. Existing system of MPAs also does not meet the minimum requirements to adequately protect threatened species, particularly the endemic ones. The predominance of multiple-use MPAs highlights critical gaps between MPA coverage and protection levels afforded. The conservation effectiveness of Brazilian MPAs is variable and the difference between MPA coverage and protection level reached up to 94%. The extensive amount of reef area lying within priority areas for further protection highlights the need of expanding and strengthening the existing system of MPAs. We also identified a general lack of long-term monitoring programs running over no-take MPAs and the absence of more specific studies developing recovery tools designed for coral reefs.