Open AccessApplied science facilitates the large-scale expansion of protected areas in an Amazonian hot spot
Author(s) -
Nigel Pitman,
Corine Vriesendorp,
Diana Alvira Reyes,
Debra K. Moskovits,
Nicholas Kotlinski,
Richard C. Smith,
Michelle E. Thompson,
Alaka Wali,
Margarita Benavides Matarazzo,
Álvaro del Campo,
Dani E. Rivera González,
Lelis Rivera Chávez,
Amy Rosenthal,
José Álvarez Alonso,
María Elena Díaz Ñaupari,
Lesley S. de Souza,
Freddy R. Ferreyra Vela,
Cristian Ney Gonzales Tanchiva,
Christopher Jarrett,
Ana A. Lemos,
Ana Rosa Sáenz Rodríguez,
Douglas F. Stotz,
Tomomi Suwa,
Mario Pariona Fonseca,
A. Ravikumar,
Teofilo Torres Tuesta,
Adriana Bravo,
Alessandro Catenazzi,
Juan Díaz Alván,
Giussepe GagliardiUrrutia,
Roosevelt GarcíaVillacorta,
Max Hidalgo,
Tony Mori Vargas,
Jonh Jairo Mueses-Cisneros,
Gabriela Núñez-Iturri,
Tatiana Pequeño,
Marcos Ríos Paredes,
Lily O. Rodríguez,
Robert F. Stallard,
Luis A. Torres Montenegro,
Pablo J. Venegas,
Rudolf von May,
Nélida Barbagelata Ramírez,
Javier Alejandro Maldonado Ocampo,
Ítalo Mesones Acuy
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
science advances
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.928
H-Index - 146
ISSN - 2375-2548
DOI - 10.1126/sciadv.abe2998
Subject(s) - amazonian , hot spot (computer programming) , multidisciplinary approach , scale (ratio) , geography , amazon rainforest , field (mathematics) , cartography , ecology , biology , computer science , political science , mathematics , operating system , pure mathematics , law
Meeting international commitments to protect 17% of terrestrial ecosystems worldwide will require >3 million square kilometers of new protected areas and strategies to create those areas in a way that respects local communities and land use. In 2000-2016, biological and social scientists worked to increase the protected proportion of Peru's largest department via 14 interdisciplinary inventories covering >9 million hectares of this megadiverse corner of the Amazon basin. In each landscape, the strategy was the same: convene diverse partners, identify biological and sociocultural assets, document residents' use of natural resources, and tailor the findings to the needs of decision-makers. Nine of the 14 landscapes have since been protected (5.7 million hectares of new protected areas), contributing to a quadrupling of conservation coverage in Loreto (from 6 to 23%). We outline the methods and enabling conditions most crucial for successfully applying similar campaigns elsewhere on Earth.