Conservation Biology最新文献

{"title":"Assessing multiple benefits of people-centered biocultural restoration","authors":"Hudson Toscano da Silva,&nbsp;Felipe P. L. Melo,&nbsp;Gabriel da Costa Ferreira,&nbsp;Cristina Baldauf","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70036","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Restoration is currently among the most important tools for conserving biodiversity, but participation in restoration by local communities in its planning and design must be improved. We devised a people-centered biocultural approach to restoration that combines Indigenous local knowledge and scientific methods to select species for restoration such that human welfare and biodiversity conservation are considered. We applied the approach to the Caatinga dry forest, for which we simulated agroforestry productive systems based on plant species previously selected by locals for use in restoration, given their importance for water, energy, and food security. We compared functional diversity in the simulated systems with functional diversity in natural systems. Common native and some non-native species with low invasive potential dominated the average productive system. These species had functional diversity similar to that of natural vegetation but had a slightly different functional profile. Simulated systems were dominated by plant species with more acquisitive functional strategies than native flora. The adoption of our biocultural approach to restoration programs in the region illustrates the importance of local participation; local selection of species for restoration had little effect on ecosystem functional diversity. Our framework can be readily adapted to various contexts for evaluating cultural preferences and the ecological efficacy of biocultural restoration initiatives globally.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sociotechnical approach to protected areas and traditional communities","authors":"Carlos Sautchuk,&nbsp;Guilherme M. Fagundes,&nbsp;Henyo T. Barretto Filho","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70048","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We explore the relationship between protected areas (PAs) and traditional communities to further the proposition of conservation as a sociotechnical phenomenon. To do this, we use an anthropological empirical approach based on long-term ethnographic studies conducted in Brazil by 2 different researchers who lived among local fishers on the Amazon and Quilombolas in the Cerrado (a savanna). Both studies related to the establishment of terms of commitment between PAs and traditional communities in the context of participatory management. In one case, an agreement between the staff of the Lago Piratuba Biological Reserve and pirarucu fish harpooners from Sucuriju village regarding fishing methods is examined. The other case explores the transformations related to the ban on firebreaks practiced by Quilombola communities in the Cerrado region of central Brazil and the efforts by the managers of the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station to rehabilitate cultural burns. We find there were benefits to a sociotechnical approach to understanding environmental conservation. The permanence of the harpoon in the Amazon and the rehabilitation of firebreaks in the Cerrado reconfigure conservation and local communities’ techniques. More generally, this perspective can help avoid a reified view of the traditional communities and an abstract perspective of conservation policies. We believe sociotechnical conservation is a transformative approach that can be used to improve conventional conservation perspectives.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Strengthening Amazon conservation through community-based voluntary patrolling","authors":"Caetano L. B. Franco,&nbsp;Thais Q. Morcatty,&nbsp;Helder L. Queiroz,&nbsp;Michael G. Sorice,&nbsp;Julia E. Fa,&nbsp;Paulo Roberto e Souza,&nbsp;Isabel S. Sousa,&nbsp;João Valsecchi,&nbsp;Hani R. El Bizri","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70045","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Globally, environmental crimes are a major threat to biodiversity and the livelihood of local populations. Community-based protection of natural resources, which involves local people in surveillance and enforcement, is an important complement to the government-led command-and-control policing approach. We examined whether a community-based voluntary patrolling system deterred environmental crimes in Amazonia. We used data on environmental crimes recorded by patrollers over 11 years (2003–2013) in 12 independent territorial units in 2 large protected areas (PAs) in Amazonas, Brazil. For comparison, we also analyzed data from government-led enforcement operations outside these PAs from 2002 to 2012. In total, patrollers conducted almost 20,000 surveillance outings (around 150,000 h of activity) and recorded the occurrence of 1260 crimes. Of the 772 crimes for which we had data on seized items, most violations were related to fishing (78.24%), 19.04% to hunting, or 2.72% to logging. The occurrence of crimes per outing increased as the number of patrollers and time spent patrolling increased and was greater during outings that were informant led. There was a sharp decrease over time in the occurrence of crimes during patrols across 11 of the 12 territorial units examined. Overall, the occurrence of crimes declined by approximately 80% over the study period. In contrast, the number of crimes detected over time during government-led enforcement operations outside the PAs did not decline. Leadership of local communities in the planning and conducting of patrols contributed to rule conformity and enforcement in the PAs. Our results should be especially useful to managers of PAs and researchers in other parts of the tropics as a model for local patrolling and natural resource protection.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cobi.70045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171551","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comanagement and reconciling of ecological and economic benefits in an Amazonian freshwater fishery","authors":"Monalisa R. O. Silva,&nbsp;Leandro Castello,&nbsp;Carolina T. Freitas,&nbsp;João V. Campos-Silva,&nbsp;Carlos A. Peres,&nbsp;Evlyn M. L. M. Novo","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70035","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Freshwater ecosystems contribute substantially to the global fish catch. However, freshwater fisheries face growing human pressures and are underrepresented in global analyses and conservation strategies. Attempts to reconcile conservation and human welfare goals in fisheries have led to comanagement by the government and local communities, along with other stakeholders, but assessments of its effectiveness in freshwater fisheries are lacking. We investigated the effectiveness of comanagement in freshwater fisheries by assessing ecological (fish catch) and economic (fishing revenue) outcomes in a major tributary of the Amazon Basin. Fisheries comanagement in the Amazon is typically implemented through an approach developed by riverine communities called lake management in which floodplain lakes are categorized as open access, subsistence, or protected. Each category has different levels and types of fishing pressure. We analyzed data (e.g., fishing data and management rules) from 1607 fishing trips of 198 fishers over 5 years in 30 riverine communities in 74 floodplain lakes (20 open access, 33 subsistence, and 21 protected). Lake comanagement increased fish catch in protected lakes over time by 12% (2.4 kg) compared with subsistence lakes and by 13% (2.6 kg) compared with open-access lakes (<i>p</i> = 0.03). Increased fish catch in protected lakes was mainly due to limits on fishing effort. Fishing revenue was 63% greater in protected lakes than in open-access lakes (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.001), mainly due to increased harvests of species that had small to medium home ranges and were amenable to management at the small geographical areas of these community initiatives. These results show how one locally developed approach to comanagement can reconcile ecological and socioeconomic benefits and provide policy-relevant evidence that can serve as models to foster freshwater conservation elsewhere.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Changing the paradigm for the development of the Caatinga dry forest region to rescue threatened biodiversity and improve sustainability","authors":"Marcelo Tabarelli,&nbsp;Inara R. Leal,&nbsp;Ariadna V. Lopes,&nbsp;Nathalia Canassa,&nbsp;Helder F. P. Araujo","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70030","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Caatinga dry forest in northeastern Brazil represents one of the most species-rich dry forests globally. It is densely populated, contains economically undeveloped areas, and harbors increasingly degraded irreplaceable biota. In response to human disturbance, forests have been replaced by shrubs, and desertification is expanding. Seedling recruitment is reduced, and a subset of woody plant species have resprouted, comprising most of the new growth. The proliferation of low-statured individuals of disturbance-adapted species depletes the forest's capacity to retain biodiversity and provide key ecosystem services of local and global relevance. Such widespread habitat degradation is a key driver of species extinction; 111 vertebrate species are already threatened. Conservation plans are available for these vertebrates and 6 Cactaceae species, but only a handful of initiatives involving local stakeholders (e.g., traditional communities) have been implemented. The mascotization of threatened species has been the main approach to achieve several conservation goals, including the provision of new economic opportunities for locals, particularly via ecotourism. Unfortunately, Caatinga initiatives focused on reconciling biodiversity conservation with sustainable development and poverty alleviation are still tied to the concept of better practices in support of intense forest exploitation and extractivism rather than promoting crop and livestock production via modern technologies. Reducing or eliminating forest extractivism is a precondition to spare old-growth forests and thus maintain irreplaceable ecosystem services, such as soil protection, microclimate control, groundwater recharge, and high-quality habitat for threatened species. The persistence of these services (rather than the provision of forest products) is of strategic relevance because drylands are subject to higher aridity associated with climate change. We propose multifunctional agricultural landscapes be implemented to promote rural sustainable development. These landscapes should include high forest cover, forest integrity, and soil multifunctionality, all of which would provide key ecosystem services and biodiversity persistence.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Integrating local ecological knowledge into systematic conservation planning for seahorse conservation","authors":"Anna Karolina Martins Borges,&nbsp;Vanessa M. Adams,&nbsp;Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Alves,&nbsp;Tacyana Pereira Ribeiro Oliveira","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70027","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Successful long-term conservation relies on strategic planning for pragmatic actions to mitigate threats. Prioritizing actions and areas to support conservation goals in the most cost-effective scenario becomes crucial in resource-limited environments. However, planning and management can be challenging in data-limited contexts. Incorporating local ecological knowledge (LEK) into conservation planning is an underexplored method of addressing these knowledge gaps. We utilized systematic conservation planning to identify key sites for seahorse threat management in a complex social-ecological system in a protected area. Through participatory mapping and interviews with artisanal fishers, we gathered insights about seahorses, threats to them, and their socioeconomic significance for the local community. We compared LEK-derived seahorse conservation priorities with spatial priorities identified using Marxan and with LEK-derived and science-derived data to explore LEK's contribution to spatial planning for a data-poor species and to explore different seahorse threat management scenarios. The LEK-derived and science-derived seahorse abundance Marxan scenarios had a strong spatial agreement, emphasizing LEK's role in conservation planning. Furthermore, LEK-derived data filled key data gaps on the distribution and nature of water-based threats. Threat management scenarios for land and water-based threat management had distinct spatial patterns. Incorporating LEK into decision-making empowered local communities and thus fostered community-based management. These findings offer insights into conservation planning in data-deficient scenarios and can aid decision makers and local stakeholders in inclusive conservation strategies. Our results identified priorities for seahorse conservation in the Rio Formoso Estuary and our methods offer a transferable approach for participatory and interdisciplinary planning, which are essential for biodiversity conservation and livelihoods maintenance.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cobi.70027","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Using camera traps to enhance community-based management of subsistence hunting in the Amazon","authors":"Ricardo Sampaio,&nbsp;Ronaldo G. Morato,&nbsp;André Valle Nunes,&nbsp;Adriano G. Chiarello","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70044","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Community-based management and monitoring of biodiversity has emerged as a cost-effective strategy for providing credible data, informing decision-making, and empowering local communities in resource governance and management. However, the establishment of community-based management of subsistence hunting in the Brazilian Amazon has been hampered by legal uncertainty. Local regulations, such as the restriction or banning of mixed-breed dogs in hunting, have been strengthened to address social conflicts and improve wildlife management, but the conservation effectiveness of such regulations has been questioned. We conducted a case study of community-based decision-making in a human community in the Riozinho da Liberdade Extractive Reserve in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon. This community established an informal agreement to limit the use of hunting dogs along one of the banks of the Liberdade River. After analyzing the results of 20 camera traps (CTs) placed in areas with and without the use of hunting dogs, the community strengthened their hunting agreement and decided to reinforce the agreement and ban this type of hunting completely. Subsequent to this decision, we analyzed the CT data and verified the negative effects of hunting with dogs on site-level species richness, aggregate abundance and biomass, and the relative abundance and individual detection of some species. To strengthen community-based subsistence hunting strategies in the Amazon and tropical forests in general, we suggest that camera trapping sampling of sites with different hunting management strategies and subsequent presentation to communities can facilitate local engagement, strengthen social and management rules, increase the decolonization of wildlife management, and ultimately expedite decision-making processes to avoid the tragedy of the commons in similar tropical forest socioecological systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cobi.70044","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171550","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessment of demographic sustainability of Comanthera elegans under traditional management in the Brazilian savanna","authors":"Thiago da Silva Novato,&nbsp;Ulysses Paulino de Albuquerque,&nbsp;Juliana Loureiro de Almeida Campos,&nbsp;Gustavo Taboada Soldati","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70028","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Nontimber forest product (NTFP) agroextractivism plays a critical role in the livelihoods of billions and offers the potential to balance sustainable development with biodiversity conservation. However, its sustainability depends on analyzing species' vital rates and local management practices because extraction can contribute to their conservation or deplete NTFP populations and ecosystems. We integrated demographic and ethnobiological approaches to evaluate how traditional management affects the population dynamics of <i>Comanthera elegans</i> L. R. Parra &amp; Giul, a Brazilian endemic herb considered at risk of extinction due to harvesting pressures. Over 3 years, we conducted a demographic experiment with 28,441 individuals in the Sempre-Vivas National Park to examine the effect of the traditional harvest and management practices of the Sempre-Vivas Flower Pickers on the species' vital rates. We used six treatments, including variations in traditional harvest times (early or late), traditional use of fire, and control conditions. Fecundity rates, population growth, seedling and adult mortality, and flowering were monitored across 120 plots. Early harvests decreased fecundity and population growth due to reduced seed viability, whereas late harvests combined with fire increased flowering and population growth rates. Fire improved soil conditions by enhancing pH and potassium levels. The improved soil conditions lowered seedling mortality and increased population resilience. These results suggest that traditional fire and harvest management practices contribute to the long-term sustainability of <i>C. elegans</i> populations. We propose that national conservation policies decriminalize these practices because they support sustainable resource use thus enhancing biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods. Our results underscore the need to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into the management and conservation of NTFPs in the Brazilian savanna.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Forest citizens and people-centered conservation in the Brazilian Amazon","authors":"Luke Parry,&nbsp;Thiago F. Morello,&nbsp;James A. Fraser,&nbsp;Natalia Guerrero,&nbsp;Gabriela S. Lotta,&nbsp;Rodrigo C. Martins,&nbsp;Peter Newton,&nbsp;Jessica C. Pires Cardoso,&nbsp;Andreza A. Souza Santos,&nbsp;Mauricio Torres","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70031","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Demands for territorial recognition are foundational to the claiming of rights by forest-proximate people who attempt to conserve their forests. The rights of these often-marginalized populations have been largely overlooked by conservationists, yet they are central to achieving people-centered conservation. We further developed the concept of forest citizenship as a normative framework and analytical tool based on Brazilian social environmentalism (<i>socioambientalismo</i>), <i>florestania</i> (a former political project in Acre state), Latin American scholarship on ecological citizenship, and Eurocentric political philosophy. Decades of struggle for territorial recognition and social inclusion have solidified the right to have rights for Amazonia's forest citizens. Hence, forest citizens are people who have become so through the sociopolitical dynamics of their rights claims. Forest citizenship is built on community mobilization to create legally recognized territories with participatory governance but becomes tangible only if individuals and communities can successfully claim other rights from institutions through everyday practices of citizenship. We also assessed the current number and distribution of forest citizens across Brazilian Amazonia based on gridded population data and spatial analyses to calculate the resident population in four territorial categories that meet these democratic preconditions: Indigenous lands, extractive reserves, sustainable development reserves, ecological settlement projects, and Afro-descendent <i>Quilombola</i> territories. The territories covered 31% of the Legal Amazon, were home to 1.05 million forest citizens, and had diverse primary policy objectives but shared goals of empowering communities and conserving forests. To be emancipatory, forest citizenship must be bottom-up, socially inclusive, and improve people's lives. We suggest that conservationists pay greater attention to power relations and decision-making structures related to forest territories. Territory-based forest citizenship may be relevant for other countries where environmentalism has intersected with struggles for land rights and democracy.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cobi.70031","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Socioenvironmental impacts of the Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant as revealed by Indigenous and ribeirinho monitoring","authors":"Josiel Jacinto Pereira Juruna,&nbsp;Raimundo da Cruz e Silva,&nbsp;Orcylene Barbosa dos Reis,&nbsp;Amildon Moura Assunção,&nbsp;Anderson Sampaio da Silva,&nbsp;Helio Bezerra da Silva,&nbsp;Jailson Jacinto Pereira Juruna,&nbsp;Josimary Abreu Nunes,&nbsp;Micaele Souza Santos Kleme,&nbsp;Paulo Passos Ferreira,&nbsp;Ronald Txakui Viana da Silva Juruna,&nbsp;Rosilene Sousa dos Santos,&nbsp;Sara Rodrigues Lima,&nbsp;Sebastião Bezerra Lima,&nbsp;Tarukawa Juruna da Cruz Pereira,&nbsp;Adriano Quaresma,&nbsp;Alexya Cunha de Queiroz,&nbsp;André Oliveira Sawakuchi,&nbsp;Camila Cherem Ribas,&nbsp;Camila Duarte Ritter,&nbsp;Cristiane Costa Carneiro,&nbsp;Eder Mileno Silva De Paula,&nbsp;Gabriela Zuquim,&nbsp;Helena Palmquist,&nbsp;Ingo Wahnfried,&nbsp;Jandessa Silva de Jesus,&nbsp;Janice Muriel-Cunha,&nbsp;Jansen Zuanon,&nbsp;Juarez Carlos Brito Pezzuti,&nbsp;Marksuel Sandro Silva de Medeiros,&nbsp;Priscila F. M. Lopes,&nbsp;Thais Regina Mantovanelli","doi":"10.1111/cobi.70043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70043","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Hydroelectric dams, once seen as clean and renewable energy sources, have been the subject of extensive research, particularly concerning their socioenvironmental impacts. The Belo Monte hydroelectric power plant (HPP) relies on the operation of 2 dams that divert water from a 130-km stretch of the Xingu River to generate energy. The dam has disrupted the seasonal flooding cycle (flood pulse) along the Volta Grande do Xingu (VGX) and created a reduced discharge condition analogous to a prolonged and extreme dry season in the watershed. Before the Belo Monte HPP, local communities relied on the highly diverse and abundant fish assemblage supported by seasonal flooding of the ecosystem. Local VGX residents sought partnerships and established the Independent Territorial Environmental Monitoring Program (MATI-VGX). Through this program, locals monitored fish spawning sites and fishing dynamics. This monitoring complemented and quantified local communities’ perceptions about the environmental impacts caused by the Belo Monte HPP. The HPP was associated with a water discharge shortage that critically undermined the river's capacity to sustain vital ecosystem processes that support local people's lives. Drastic transformations of traditional lifestyles, shifts in fishing practices, and a significant decline in fishing yield occurred that jeopardized food sovereignty and security. The Belo Monte HPP environmental licensing process ignored local ecological knowledge and the vital links among the river's flood pulse, the aquatic and seasonally flooded ecosystems, and the traditional lifestyles of VGX residents. To ensure the ecological sustainability of the VGX, the Belo Monte HPP operation needs to change to support key spawning areas, maintain water discharge, avoid short-term water fluctuations, and emulate natural interannual discharge variability to mitigate flood pulse disruption. Local ecological knowledge should never be ignored in projects where local communities are the most affected. These communities should be central in decision-making regarding socioenvironmental impact assessment, mitigation, and monitoring.</p>","PeriodicalId":10689,"journal":{"name":"Conservation Biology","volume":"39 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171661","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}