SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation

Abstract: With endangered status and more than 8,000 endemic species, the Atlantic Forest is one of the world's 25 biodiversity hotspots. Less than 100,000 km 2 (about 7%) of the forest remains. In some areas of endemism, all that is left are immense archipelagos of tiny and widely separated forest fragments. In addition to habitat loss, other threats contributing to forest degradation include the harvesting of firewood, illegal logging, hunting, plant collecting, and invasion by alien species—all despite the legislation that exists for the forest's protection. More than 530 plants and animals occurring in the forest are now officially threatened, some at the biome level, some throughout Brazil, and some globally. Many species have not been recorded in any protected areas, indicating the need to rationalize and expand the parks system. Although conservation initiatives have increased in number and scale during the last two decades, they are still insufficient to guarantee the conservation of Atlantic Forest biodiversity. To avoid further deforestation and massive species loss in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, the challenge is to integrate the diverse regulations, public policies, new opportunities, and incentive mechanisms for forest protection and restoration and the various independent projects and programs carried out by governments and nongovernmental organizations into a single and comprehensive strategy for establishing networks of sustainable landscapes throughout the region.

Understanding the dynamics of native forest loss and gain is critical for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, especially in regions experiencing intense forest transformations. We quantified native forest cover dynamics on an annual basis from 1990 to 2017 in Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Despite the relative stability of native forest cover during this period (~28 Mha), the ongoing loss of older native forests, mostly on flatter terrains, have been hidden by the increasing gain of younger native forest cover, mostly on marginal lands for mechanized agriculture. Changes in native forest cover and its spatial distribution increased forest isolation in 36.4% of the landscapes. The clearance of older forests associated with the recut of 27% of younger forests has resulted in a progressive rejuvenation of the native forest cover. We highlight the need to include native forest spatiotemporal dynamics into restoration programs to better estimate their expected benefits and unexpected problems.

An increasingly asked question is 'can we confidently link bats with emerging viruses?'. No, or not yet, is the qualified answer based on the evidence available. Although more than 200 viruses - some of them deadly zoonotic viruses - have been isolated from or otherwise detected in bats, the supposed connections between bats, bat viruses and human diseases have been raised more on speculation than on evidence supporting their direct or indirect roles in the epidemiology of diseases (except for rabies). However, we are convinced that the evidence points in that direction and that at some point it will be proved that bats are competent hosts for at least a few zoonotic viruses. In this review, we cover aspects of bat biology, ecology and evolution that might be relevant in medical investigations and we provide a historical synthesis of some disease outbreaks causally linked to bats. We provide evolutionary-based hypotheses to tentatively explain the viral transmission route through mammalian intermediate hosts and to explain the geographic concentration of most outbreaks, but both are no more than speculations that still require formal assessment.

Over the past 150 years, Brazil has played a pioneering role in developing environmental policies and pursuing forest conservation and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems. In particular, the Brazilian Forest Act, first drafted in 1934, has been fundamental in reducing deforestation and engaging private land owners in forest restoration initiatives. At the time of writing (December 2010), however, a proposal for major revision of the Brazilian Forest Act is under intense debate in the National Assembly, and we are deeply concerned about the outcome. On the basis of the analysis of detailed vegetation and hydrographic maps, we estimate that the proposed changes may reduce the total amount of potential areas for restoration in the Atlantic Forest by approximately 6 million hectares. As a radically different policy model, we present the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP), which is a group of more than 160 members that represents one of the most important and ambitious ecological restoration programs in the world. The AFRP aims to restore 15 million hectares of degraded lands in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome by 2050 and increase the current forest cover of the biome from 17% to at least 30%. We argue that not only should Brazilian lawmakers refrain from revising the existing Forest Law, but also greatly step up investments in the science, business, and practice of ecological restoration throughout the country, including the Atlantic Forest. The AFRP provides a template that could be adapted to other forest biomes in Brazil and to other megadiversity countries around the world.

Achieving ambitious global restoration commitments is a huge challenge. The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, created in 2009 as a movement to restore 15 Mha of degraded/deforested lands by 2050, pledged 1 Mha towards the 2020 Bonn Challenge. We documented the restoration of an estimated 673,510–740,555 ha of native forests from 2011 to 2015 in the Atlantic Forest, and expect that a total of 1.35–1.48 Mha will be under recovery by 2020. The Pact is one of the first Brazilian restoration initiatives to monitor an international restoration commitment and to demonstrate that ambitious targets can be reached. Part of this success in large-scale restoration is related to three main Pact activities: (i) development of restoration governance, communication and articulation; (ii) promotion of strategies to influence public policies; and (iii) establishment of restoration monitoring systems. The experience and lessons learned by the Pact could inspire and inform other restoration initiatives worldwide.

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant CRT may lead to significant tumor regression in patients with rectal cancer. Different CRT regimens with consolidation chemotherapy may lead to increased rates of complete tumor regression. The purpose of this study was to understand tumor metabolic activity following two different neoadjuvant CRT regimens using sequential PET/CT imaging in two different intervals following RT. METHODS: Patients with cT2-4 N0-2 M0 rectal cancer treated by standard CRT (54Gy and 2 cycles of 5FU-based chemotherapy) or extended CRT (54Gy and 6 cycles of 5FU-based chemotherapy) underwent sequential PET/CT imaging at baseline, 6 weeks and 12 weeks from radiation completion. RESULTS: 99 patients undergoing standard CRT were compared to 12 patients undergoing CRT with consolidation chemotherapy. Patients treated with consolidation CRT had increased rates of complete clinical or pathological response (66 % vs. 23 %; p < 0.001). SUVmax variation between baseline and 6 weeks (88 % vs. 63 %; p < 0.001) and between baseline and 12 weeks (90 % vs. 57 %; p < 0.001) were significantly more pronounced among patients undergoing extended CRT with consolidation chemotherapy. An increase in SUVmax between 6 and 12 weeks was observed in 51 % of patients undergoing standard and 18 % of patients undergoing consolidation CRT (p = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: Most of the reduction in tumor metabolism after neoadjuvant CRT occurs within the first 6 weeks from RT completion. In patients undergoing CRT with consolidation chemotherapy, tumors are less likely to regain metabolic activity between 6 and 12 weeks. Therefore, assessment of tumor response may be safely postponed to 12 weeks in patients undergoing extended CRT with consolidation chemotherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT00254683.

An effective large-scale forest landscape restoration program requires the mobilization and engagement of a diverse group of stakeholders and sectors. In the Atlantic Forest biome of Brazil, a coalition of more than 270 members represented by private sector, governments, NGOs and research organizations joined efforts to transform the way large-scale and high-quality restoration is governed and implemented.

ABSTRACT Large‐seeded plants are especially vulnerable to the loss of seed dispersers in small forest fragments. The palm Attalea humilis goes against this trend by reaching high abundances in small remnants. Productivity, seed dispersal and seed predation of A. humilis were investigated in two large (2400 and 3500 ha) and three small (19, 26 and 57 ha) Atlantic Forest fragments in southeastern Brazil. Palms in the small fragments produced more female inflorescences, resulting in a higher fruit production in these places. Seed dispersal rates were higher in the large fragments, where scatter hoarding was more frequent. Scolytine beetles were the main seed predators and damaged a larger number of seeds in small fragments, but predation by rodents and bruchine beetles was low irrespective of fragment size. As scolytines do not necessarily kill the seeds, low predation by bruchines and rodents, together with its own high productivity, allow A. humilis to be more abundant in small fragments despite the scarcity of its main dispersers. This increased abundance, by its turn, can increase competitive interactions between A. humilis and other plants in small fragments. Thus, abundance patterns of A. humilis are a good example of fragmentation affecting the balance of ecological interactions in a complex way, emphasizing the role of preserving ecological processes for conserving biodiversity in fragmented tropical landscapes. Abstract in Portuguese is available at http://www.blackwell‐synergy.com/loi/btp .

The number of wind turbines in operation in Brazil will triple in five years, raising concern for the conservation of Brazilian bats. We analyzed the status of bat species richness and occurrence in areas with high wind potential in Brazil. By crossing datasets on species records and wind potential we identified 21 hotspots and 226 data gap areas. Overall, 70% of the areas with the highest wind potential are data gaps, lacking elementary information about species presence. Current Environment Impact Assessments system for wind farms in Brazil has relaxed regulations and questionable effectiveness. Environmental agencies should require de facto Environment Impact Assessments in data gap areas, with technical rigor proportional to the investment under course. At least for bats, the Brazilian wind power sector must raise the bar, adopting a more rigorous licensing. Alliances to minimize bat mortality at wind farms are necessary and this goal should be pursued in Brazil.

Promoting diversity is core for ecological restoration. Restoration projects often quantify biological diversity as a measure of success, but generally overlook human diversity, including gender issues, which have not been sufficiently considered in restoration planning, implementation, and monitoring. Here, we justify the need to consider gender equality in ecological restoration and offer guidance on adopting gender‐responsive approaches. Gender equality should be considered both a driver and a measure of success and will play a central role to leverage the contributions of restoration to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals and of women to its Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We finally recommend that the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration are amended to include a gender‐responsive perspective in its recommendations.

Selecting sites for ecological restoration is an imperative, although challenging task. We developed a spatially explicit model to support site design and prioritization towards ecological restoration. We considered seven distinct and flexible templates, two based on legislation requirements and five on landscape spatial parameters, such as corridor design, enhancements in patch size and shape, and proximity to larger sources areas, thus, with different resilience capacities. We tested the approach on two different scales of analysis: applying the legislation based templates in the Atlantic Plateau of So Paulo, which is part of the Atlantic Forest biome, and the landscape based templates in one of its sub-watersheds (~150,000 ha), and then calculated landscape indexes to compare the current forest configuration to the resulted simulated restored ones. We showed that our protocol is flexible, transparent and repeatable, thus, could help in decision making towards conservation management.

Alternative methods to control invasive fodder grasses are necessary to reduce the use of herbicides in forest restoration, which has been carried out primarily in riparian zones. We sought to investigate if inter-row cultivation of crotalaria (Crotalaria breviflora DC) or pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duschene ex. Poir) with native tree species is an efficient strategy to control invasive fodder grasses in restoration plantings. We tested five treatments in a randomized block design, namely (1) control of brachiaria grass (Urochloa decumbens (Stapf.) Webster) with glyphosate in the implementation and post-planting grass control of the reforestation, (2 and 3) glyphosate use in the implementation and inter-row sowing of crotalaria (2) or pumpkin (3), and control of brachiaria by mowing in the post-planting phase, (4 and 5) mowing in the implementation and inter-row sowing of crotalaria (4) or pumpkin (5), and control of brachiaria by mowing in the post-planting phase. Post-planting grass control was carried out four and nine months after tree seedling planting. Throughout 13 months, we evaluated the percentage of ground cover by brachiaria grass, pumpkin production, and native tree seedling mortality, height and crown cover. The exclusive use of glyphosate, without inter-row sowing of pumpkin or crotalaria showed the most favorable results for controlling brachiaria grass and, consequently, for tree seedling development. Hence, inter-row cultivation of green manure or short-lived crop species is not enough to control invasive grasses in restoration plantings, and complementary weeding is necessary to reduce the highly competitive potential of C4 grasses for supporting native species seedlings growth.

Agricultural sustainability standards are an important way of reducing commodity expansion's pressures on biodiversity. Despite the increase of global area under certification and mounting evidence of positive socioeconomic outcomes, certification-derived conservation benefits are less clear. We applied a robust counterfactual approach with a difference-in-difference methodology to quantify the environmental consequences of certification in one of the largest coffee-producing areas in the world, in southern Brazil, within the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes. We evaluated whether the adoption of certification standards affected native vegetation regeneration and deforestation, the proportion of vegetation deficit within each farm (the required area to achieve Federal Legislation required vegetation cover), and the conservation of sensitive vegetation protected under law across 531 certified farms. We did not detect certification-derived effects on the natural vegetation cover deficit and on deforestation and regeneration rates, which were low for certified and non-certified farms. However, we found that certified farms are restoring more sensitive areas than non-certified farms in the Atlantic Forest, which indicates a potential combined effect between law enforcement and certification. We suggest that in more consolidated landscapes, certification beneficial impacts on deforestation and regeneration might be more limited than observed in areas with weaker governance, such as agricultural frontiers or low-income countries. However, our results demonstrate the potential for certification schemes to complement and promote environmental legislation compliance. These potential combined effects between private sustainability standards and compliance with government environmental policies could provide a potent tool for improving the effectiveness of certification schemes in other high-biodiversity landscapes.

The Atlantic Forest is a global biodiversity hotspot and a significant provider of ecosystem services to 65% of the Brazilian population. Due to being highly threatened, it is protected by federal law 11,428/2006, which establishes forest use restrictions based on native vegetation successional stages in the Atlantic Forest, with more advanced stages receiving more protection. The classification parameters are established at the state level. However, the parameters employed to classify forest fragments in different successional stages are subjective and imprecise, negatively impacting environmental permitting and related offset policies. Here, we critically assessed the major limitations in applying the 11,428/2006 law and presented alternatives for establishing a more transparent, applicable, legally safe, and effective protocol for identifying the conservation value of forest fragments. We also highlight problems related to sampling, indicators, and methodologies and present guidelines for revising the parameters for applying the Atlantic Forest law and associated state-level resolutions. We suggest an inclusive two-step analysis based on vegetation structure, forest cover history, biodiversity, ecosystem services (social), and landscape indicators. By employing a more technological approach and transferring part of the assessment responsibility to the state-level environmental agencies instead of allowing self-declared reports by landowners, our proposal focuses on the potential for evaluating ecological integrity among different successional classes by forest types. As nearly 90% of the remaining Brazilian Atlantic Forest is located within private lands, improving this legal instrument is essential for protecting the vulnerable biodiversity of this unique and threatened biome.

Brazilian forests critical are for climate, water, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. The Atlantic Forest and the Amazon are among the most important tropical forests of the world but have different conservation status. The first is below its minimum threshold for biodiversity conservation while the Amazon is approaching its dieback threshold. Aiming to examine policy lessons from the Atlantic Forest which could be applied to the conservation of the Amazon, we first analysed the forest cover of basins of the Amazon compared to the reality of the Atlantic Forest. We found that regions of the Amazon already have forest cover similar to the Atlantic Forest and that 34% of them are below the dieback threshold. We propose policy lessons to avoid that the Amazon follow the same route of the Atlantic Forest and concluded that they need to be implemented urgently in a precautionary approach.

Native vegetation in private lands plays an important role in providing ecosystem services and safeguarding biodiversity worldwide. Legal protection rules of this vegetation are thus crucial. In Brazil, since 1934, there has been a requirement for landowners to preserve a percentage of their land covered with native vegetation, the Legal Reserve. However, the 1934 legislation applies only to arboreal vegetation, while the protection of savannahs and grasslands begins after 1965 and 1989. The reference year for the application of Legal Reserves can thus have significant impacts on the amount of native vegetation legally protected. Here we tested the effects on Legal Reserve cover in São Paulo State, considering two different legal benchmarks as starting points: 1934 and 1965. Given that the 1934 law precedes the first aerial mapping in Brazil, we developed a methodology to estimate past native vegetation cover through a probabilistic approach. The forest deficit considering 1934 as the initial point is 3% lower than the one starting with the 1965 benchmark. Comparing both scenarios, the 1934 led to a reduction of 1255 farms with Legal Reserve deficit from a total of 30,417. For both scenarios, Legal Reserve deficits were concentrated in the West, Northwest, and Mid-west regions of the state. The outcomes showed that the benchmark change does not significantly affect the total area of Legal Reserves protection, the number of farms potentially benefited by this mechanism, and the amount of native vegetation deficit. However, the use of the 1934 as an initial date for considering protection of Legal Reserve can delay the implementation of the law due to a time-consuming farm-by-farm analysis, once the probabilistic map has an intrinsic limitation for an automatic process. Thus, the environmental gains with the adoption of 1934 as the initial date do not overcome the limitations of using a probabilistic map, suggesting that effective law enforcement depends on reliable and more recent baselines, allowing semi-automated analyses. This scientific evidence can be adopted by the other Brazilian States that have not yet defined the initial legal benchmark, balancing the advantages and disadvantages of adopting the 1934 Forest Act.

• Forest restoration plantings have lower beta diversity than remnant forests. • Plantings are more floristically similar to one another than to regional forests. • Trees planted to restore the Atlantic Forest poorly represent local floras. One goal of ecological restoration is species conservation, so selecting tree species from local floras in restoration plantings is important to restore native species populations and avoid biotic homogenization. We evaluated if species planted to restore the Brazilian Atlantic Forest adequately represent the tree flora from local reference forests, comparing the tree seedlings selected for 1,073 restoration plantings with inventory data from 268 forest remnants, for three different Atlantic Forest types. We compared the floristic composition between plantings and remnants and calculated the Jaccard dissimilarity index to assess beta diversity among plantings, among remnants, and between plantings and remnants. Overall, plantings have lower beta diversity and higher nestedness than remnants. Furthermore, plantings form a single floristic group while remnants are split into three forest types. Plantings are more floristically similar to one another than to regional remnant forest types. Tree species selected for Atlantic Forest restoration poorly represent local floras, which could favor biotic homogenization. Incentivizing greater representation of local floras and threatened and endemic species is needed for forest restoration to facilitate biodiversity recovery at large spatial scales.

The small-scale fi shery at Praia dos Pescadores (Itanhaém, São Paulo, at 24º11’S - 46º47’W), was analyzed concerning&#13;\nfi shing boats and gears. The fi shery occurs in coastal marine environment, inside an area of about 600 km2&#13;\n and between 5 to&#13;\n35 m depths. The fl eet is comprised 6,50 to 11 m long and 7,5 to 27 HP wooden, motor-powered or fi berglass boats. The main&#13;\nfi shing gear is the gillnet (75% of the fi shing boats) and single bottom otter trawl (60%). The nets are manufactured with&#13;\nnylon monofi lament (mesh sizes 70, 100, 110, 120 and 140 mm in bar measure). Seasonally-used gears include driftnets,&#13;\ntrammel nets and large-sized gillnets (mesh 300 and 400 mm). The main species landed are of the teleost family Sciaenidae,namely leatherjacket, Oligoplites saliens, Brazilian mackerel, Scomberomorus brasiliensis, catfi shes, Genidens barbus,G. genidens and Cathorops spixii, and small sharks, Rhizoprionodon lalandii, R. porosus and Sphyrna lewini, while theotter trawl-targeted species is the sea bob shrimp, Xiphopenaeus kroyeri.

Strong evidence shows that exposure and engagement with the natural world not only improve human wellbeing but can also help promote environmentally friendly behaviors. Human-nature relationships are at the heart of global agendas promoted by international organizations including the World Health Organization's (WHO) "One Health" and the United Nations (UN) "Ocean Decade." These agendas demand collaborative multisector interdisciplinary efforts at local, national, and global levels. However, while global agendas highlight global goals for a sustainable world, developing science that directly addresses these agendas from design through to delivery and outputs does not come without its challenges. In this article, we present the outcomes of international meetings between researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers from the United Kingdom and Brazil. We propose a model for interdisciplinary work under such global agendas, particularly the interface between One Health and the UN Ocean Decade and identify three priority research areas closely linked to each other: human-nature connection, conservation-human behavior, and implementation strategies (bringing stakeholders together). We also discuss a number of recommendations for moving forward.

Dasyophthalma includes five species of medium-sized butterflies, all endemic from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. All known species are univoltine and are dayflying, differently from other Brassolini that are mostly crepuscular. In despite of recent advances little is known about their natural history. Three out of the five species are included in the Brazilian Red List of threatened fauna and are of conservation concern. The present study provides for the first time a phylogenetic assessment of all Dasyophthalma species based on a molecular approach based on three loci. Also, the taxonomic status of D. rusina delanira was revised based on molecular data. In addition, up-to-date distributional data and conservation aspects of the threatened species from the genus are presented and discussed. The molecular phylogenetic analysis supports the monophyly of Dasyophthalma , with Dynastor darius as its sister-group, and, combined with a genetic divergence analysis, supported Dasyophthalma delanira stat. rest. as a valid name to species-level, sister-group to D. geraensis (and not a subspecies of D. rusina ). The geographical range (extent of occurrence and area of occupancy) for all five species are presented, showing that these are very restricted for D. delanira stat. rest. and D. geraensis , following the distributions of the high-altitude forests. As much biological information about the genus is lacking, the present study can serve as a starting point for future studies on Dasyophthalma , adding information that can be crucial for future conservation actions and essential to assure the future of the threatened species in this genus.