Brazil’s coral reefs are distributed along 3,000 km of the northeastern coast. These are the only reef environments in the South Atlantic Ocean. Presently, Brazil has nine protected areas within this ecosystem. These include sites designated under the Ramsar Convention and the World Heritage Convention.
To improve management and protection of these critically important environments, Brazil mapped the coral reefs that are located in the various protected areas. This mapping process used remote sensing data and geographical information system technology. This project was carried out with financial support of the Wetlands for the Future Fund (see case study on “Financial Mechanisms for Implementing the Ramsar Convention” following Guideline 33
). The partner institutions responsible for the project were the Directorate of Protected Areas (within the Ministry of the Environment), the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and the Coastal Reef Project (a project coordinated by the Federal University of Pernambuco).
These maps are now part of a digital database that formed the basis for an Atlas of Coral Reefs in Protected Areas in Brazil. This information can be used as background to inform management plans, as a baseline to detect changes in habitats over time, and as a basis to plan monitoring strategies. Because the information is in a digital database, it is easy to update it as new information is acquired from the field. The Atlas includes contributions from 11 authors, and there are 39 maps of the nine protected areas included in the project. This project is also aimed at training managers working in protected areas on the use of geo-technologies such as digital image processing and geo-database creation. Other initiatives to protect Brazil’s coral reefs are also presented in the Atlas, including the Coral Reef Conservation Campaign and Program for Monitoring Brazilian Reefs.
A revised and extended second edition of the Atlas was released during COP8 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Curitiba, Brazil, in March 2006. This edition includes a new chapter with 20 new thematic maps of areas among the protected areas, from the state of Rio Grande do Sul north to the southern part of Bahia. These new maps focus on areas representative of shallow reefs in protected areas. Also, this new edition has another chapter about the Coral Vivo Project, which highlights recent studies regarding the reproduction, recruitment, and distribution of corals from Brazilian reefs with the aim of establishing practices to recover coral populations of degraded reefs.
For more information, see http://www.mma.gov.br or contact livia.loiola@mma.gov.br, ana-paula.prates@mma.gov.br, larissa.godoy@mma.gov.br, maria-carolina.hazin@mma.gov.br, or raquel.breda@mma.gov.br