GEO Brasil - UNEP

T abe 5 - P ercentage of areas of B razilian biomes that are protected by F ederal and S tate F ull P rotection and
S ustainableUseConservation Units.
Area/km2
Area in
Cons. Unit/km2
% State
Full
Protection
% State
Sustainable Use
% Federal
Full
Protection
% Federal
Sustainable Use
368,896,022.37 49,693,825.92 13.47 3,485,406.08 0.94 13,981,733.10 3.79 13,568,630.10 3.68 18,658,056.64 5.06
196,776,092.28 8,189,279.24 4.16 1,401,123.38 0.71 2,787,202.68 1.42 2,638,266.89 1.34 1,362,686.29 0.69
110,626,617.41 5,890,119.16 5.32 1,237,021.15 1.12 2,090,504.03 1.89 790,857.21 0.71 1,771,736.77 1.60
73,683,115.53 2,122,355.04 2.88 2,886.15 0.00 17,379.71 0.02 504,938.65 0.69 1,597,150.53 2.17
41,400,717.92 1,121,247.16 2.71 233,833.73 0.56 845,607.63 2.04 5,678.78 0.01 36,127.02 0.09
%
the state of environment in Brazil
17,137,704.54 368,008.56 2.15 0.00 0.00 50,992.75 0.30 317,015.82 1.85
14,458,259.63 2,223,804.20 15.38 4,124.74 0.03 1,155,505.10 7.99 6,659.04 0.05 1,060,515.32 7.34
13,684,530.26 75,719.01 0.55 224.41 0.00 0.00 75,494.59 0.55 0.00
11,510,813.00 403,206.81 3.50 3946.12 0.03 0.00 383.732.97 3.33 15,527.72 0.13
5,056,768.47 2,412,198.78 47.70 136,893.05 2.71 1,764,204.14 34.89 322,674.95 6.38 188,426.64 3.73
Source: IBAMA - 2002
natural environments represent less than 3 percent of the
national territory None of the Brazilian biomes protect the
minimum of 10 percent of its extension, as suggested at
the World Congress for Parks in 1982 (Table 5) Compared
to the world average of 6 percent and to the percentage of
other South American countries - Colombia 79 percent,
Venezuela 22 percent, and Bolivia 39 percent - the current
Brazilian system, with 291 percent protected, is clearly
deficient (Sales 1996, IUCN 1997b)
In addition to the unsatisfactory extension of the
conservation unit system, the same can be observed
regarding is effectiveness An evaluation of federal
conservation units of integral protection undertaken in 1999
(Lemos & Ferreira 2000) stated that, of the 86 units analysed,
47 (55 percent) were in a precarious state, 32 (37 percent)
were considered as minimally implemented, and only 7 (84
percent) were considered satisfactorily implemented
Existing units are also not distributed according to
representative criteria throughout the different biogeographic
regions, a fact that can further reduce the
effectiveness of the system for conserving biological
diversity (Pressey et al 1993, Ferreira 2001, Fonseca et al
1997) The Amazon, for example, concentrates around 685
percent of the total protected areas in the country, whereas
the Atlantic Forest protects only 8 percent of Brazilian
territory The average size of conservation units also indicates
the differences between biomes In the Amazon, the average
size is of 485,603 hectares and in the Atlantic forest it is
29,681 hectares (Figure 4) This implies the adoption of
differentiated management and protection measures
Among the main problems of conservation units is the lack
of adequate planning instruments, such as management
plans and the insufficient number of staff per unit The use
of the unit that is incompatible with its objective also occurs
in almost all regions, as well as lack of physical demarcation
– a situation also evidenced in the North and Northeast In
the South and Southeast regions, the difficulties registered
regard the lack of financial resources These results
demonstrate the great variety of problems encountered by
conservation units regarding implementation issues, thus
the need for the adoption of general and specific policies to
solve problems within each region Additionally, both the
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