Community-based management expands ecosystem protection footprint in Amazonian forests

Rodrigues, Ana Carla, Costa, Hugo C.M., Peres, Carlos A., Brondizio, Eduardo Sonnewend, Dias, Adevaldo, de Moraes, José Alves, Constantino, Pedro de Araujo Lima, Ladle, Richard James, Malhado, Ana Claudia Mendes and Campos-Silva, João Vitor (2025) Community-based management expands ecosystem protection footprint in Amazonian forests. Nature Sustainability, 8 (11). pp. 1304-1313. ISSN 2398-9629

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Abstract

Community-based conservation has gained traction in the Brazilian Amazon because of its potential in combining territorial protection, local well-being and biodiversity conservation. We assessed the footprint of effective protection, areas actively monitored and defended through community-led surveillance, where illegal activities such as poaching, fishing and logging are successfully prevented, within the largest community-based fisheries conservation arrangement in the Amazon. While the arrangement focused specifically on 13 lakes which were on average 47 ha in size, the effectively protected floodplain area was approximately eightfold larger than the extent of direct protection, defined as the immediate focal area sustaining financial returns through co-management. The additional protection of this ‘functional area’ was on average 11,188 ha, or 36-fold larger than the directly protected area. Although the average cost of effective protection was low (US$0.95 ha−1 yr−1), this was entirely incurred by low-income local communities. Our study underscores the remarkable effort leveraged by Amazonian rural communities in protecting natural ecosystems and the imperative need to develop compensation mechanisms to financially reward them, which are currently lacking.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01633-6. We thank the Secretaria do Estado do Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento Sustentavel do Amazonas and ICMBio for granting research permits. We are grateful to the Associacao dos Produtores Rurais de Carauari, Associacao dos Moradores da Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentavel Uacari, Departamento de Mudancas Climaticas e Gestao de Areas Protegidas da Secretaria de Meio Ambiente do Amazonas and all local communities along the Medio Jurua region. Their collaboration, insights and support were instrumental in the successful execution of this project.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	global and planetary change,food science,geography, planning and development,ecology,renewable energy, sustainability and the environment,urban studies,nature and landscape conservation,management, monitoring, policy and law ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2306
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	31 Mar 2026 16:30
Last Modified:	31 Mar 2026 16:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102691
DOI:	10.1038/s41893-025-01633-6

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