Elsevier

Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation

Volume 16, Issue 4, October–December 2018, Pages 234-237
Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation

Policy Forums
Brazil's Native Vegetation Protection Law threatens to collapse pond functions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pecon.2018.08.003Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
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Highlights

  • Pond systems provide essential and unique landscape functions.

  • Unsustainable policies threaten to collapse pond functions in Brazil.

  • Emergency measures are necessary to prevent pond extirpation.

  • Brazil needs a national policy for wetland conservation.

Abstract

Pond systems perform a myriad of ecosystem services and make unique contributions to aquatic biodiversity conservation at the landscape scale. Despite their high conservation value, in Brazil, natural ponds have been lost and degraded at alarming rates. The remaining have become exceptionally vulnerable after the enactment of the recent Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL), whose unsustainable policies threatens to collapse these ecosystems. Although in force since 2012, the regulation of the NVPL is still in course at the state level, offering a unique opportunity to reduce the gap between science and policy. Here, we show why the NVPL threatens ponds and how its inadequacies can be overcome. Finally, we emphasize the need to create a national policy specifically focusing on wetland conservation.

Abbreviations

UEWs
upland-embedded wetlands
NVPL
Native Vegetation Protection Law
PPAs
Permanent Preservation Areas

Keywords

Biodiversity
Ecosystem services
Upland-embedded wetlands
Conservation
Environmental legislation
Unsustainable policies

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