Environmental impact assessment in Brazilian Amazonia: Challenges and prospects to assess biodiversity

Ritter, Camila Duarte; McCrate, Gabriel Beleia; Nilsson, R. Henrik; Fearnside, Philip M.; Palme, Ulrika; Antonelli, Alexandre

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2016.12.031

Cited by 78 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Hydrological connectivity in Amazonia is increasingly disrupted by dynamic and multifaceted drivers (Ritter et al., 2017), including mining, and land‐use changes that have modified at least 20% of Amazonia, with over 150 hydroelectric dams currently in operation and hundreds more planned (Castello & Macedo, 2016). The understanding of the processes related to the maintenance the gene flow throughout different environments, such as that in M. flexuosa, could aid conservation and management strategies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rivers shape population genetic structure in Mauritia flexuosa (Arecaceae)

Sander

Pérez-Zavala

Silva

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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The Mauritia flexuosa L.f. palm is known as the “tree of life” given its importance as fundamental food and construction resources for humans. The species is broadly distributed in wet habitats of Amazonia and dry habitats of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins and in the Cerrado savanna. We collected 179 individuals from eight different localities throughout these habitats and used microsatellites to characterize their population structure and patterns of gene flow. Overall, we found high genetic variation, except in one savanna locality. Gene flow between populations is largely congruent with river basins and the direction of water flow within and among them, suggesting their importance for seed dispersal. Further, rivers have had a higher frequency of human settlements than forested sites, contributing to population diversity and structure through increased human use and consumption of M. flexuosa along rivers. Gene flow patterns revealed that migrants are sourced primarily from within the same river basin, such as those from Madeira and Tapajós basins. Our work suggests that rivers and their inhabitants are a critical element of the landscape in Amazonia and have impacted the dispersal and subsequent distribution of tropical palm species, as shown by the patterns of genetic variation in M. flexuosa.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rivers shape population genetic structure in Mauritia flexuosa (Arecaceae)

Sander

Pérez-Zavala

Silva

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…The main tool in Brazil and some Amazon countries for environmental governance and licensing is local environmental impact assessment (EIA), which in most cases does not provide adequate technical information for, and thus has had minimal influence on, policy decisions 58 . Additional tools such as Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) and Integrated Environmental Assessments (IEA) are being tried in Brazil, but the EIA is still the only legal mandatory instrument for licensing.…”

Section: Boxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Damming the rivers of the Amazon basin

Latrubesse

Arima

Dunne

et al. 2017

Nature

638

473

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SummaryMore than 100 hydropower dams have already been built in the Amazon basin and numerous proposals for further dam constructions are under consideration. The accumulated negative environmental effects of built and proposed dams, if constructed, will trigger massive hydrophysical and biotic disturbances that will impact the Amazon basin's floodplains, estuary, and sediment plume. By introducing a Dam Environmental Vulnerability Index (DEVI) we quantify the current and potential impacts of dams in the basin. The scale of foreseeable environmental degradation indicates the need for collective action among nations and states to avoid cumulative, far-field impacts. We suggest institutional innovations to assess and avoid the likely impoverishment of Amazon rivers.

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“…Historically, diffuse impacts were also poorly dealt with in EIA (Drayson, Wood, & Thompson, 2017). However, much EIA and SEA legislation around the globe now accepts that species respond differentially to development (Bigard, Pioch, & Thompson, 2017), and are impacted at locations away from the direct footprint (Ritter et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating spatially realistic infrastructure impacts into conservation planning to inform strategic environmental assessment

Tulloch

Gordon

Runge

et al. 2019

CONSERVATION LETTERS

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Infrastructures such as roads and pipelines have environmental impacts that diffuse far beyond the local development footprint, including fragmenting habitat or changing hydrology. Broad‐scale diffuse impacts are challenging to incorporate into conservation planning and strategic environmental assessment due to difficulties in determining how impacts spread across landscapes. We built curves representing expert‐elicited magnitudes and spatial extents of direct and diffuse impacts of infrastructure on biodiversity groups, to incorporate these impacts into a spatial conservation prioritization. We demonstrate how different prioritization outputs inform different steps of the impact assessment mitigation hierarchy. In southern Australia we find the diffuse‐impact footprint to be four times higher than direct (i.e., local) infrastructure impacts, with >75,000 km2 of spatial priority areas for mitigation and >37,000 km2 of spatial priority areas for offsets potentially missed if diffuse impacts are ignored. Understanding both direct and diffuse infrastructure impacts will avoid inefficient spatial allocation of environmental mitigation, restoration, and offsetting efforts.

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Environmental impact assessment in Brazilian Amazonia: Challenges and prospects to assess biodiversity

Cited by 78 publications

References 54 publications

Rivers shape population genetic structure in Mauritia flexuosa (Arecaceae)

Rivers shape population genetic structure in Mauritia flexuosa (Arecaceae)

Damming the rivers of the Amazon basin

Integrating spatially realistic infrastructure impacts into conservation planning to inform strategic environmental assessment

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