The role of funding in the performance of Latin America's protected areas.

Conservationists have long argued that inadequate funding for managing protected areas (PAs) jeopardizes their ability to achieve conservation goals. However, this claim has rarely been substantiated by quantitative evaluations. To address this, we examined the impact of funding on PA effectiveness both at the scale of 17 national PA systems across Latin America and within a PA system (Ecuador), for which we had precise historical financial data. Most PAs reduced deforestation between 2000 and 2010, demonstrating their crucial role in forest conservation. However, large deficits in funding considerably reduced the effectiveness of PAs in Ecuador (on average, a unit decrease in deficit leads to a 3.07% increase in effectiveness in avoiding deforestation). While differences in effectiveness between individual PAs in Ecuador were associated with funding deficits, national-level socioeconomic metrics (e.g., the Human Development Index) were the major factor when comparing PA system-level effectiveness among countries. This result suggests that while funding plays a major role in the performance of individual PAs, the quality of the socioeconomic context at the country level is critical for the overall performance of the PA systems. We, therefore, emphasize that maximizing the effectiveness of PAs requires a multilevel approach that includes better and more strategic resource allocation for individual PAs, combined with actions for strengthening the governance and institutions that regulate PA systems.

A global map of species at risk of extinction due to natural hazards.

An often-overlooked question of the biodiversity crisis is how natural hazards contribute to species extinction risk. To address this issue, we explored how four natural hazards, earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, overlapped with the distribution ranges of amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles that have either narrow distributions or populations with few mature individuals. To assess which species are at risk from these natural hazards, we combined the frequency and magnitude of each natural hazard to estimate their impact. We considered species at risk if they overlapped with regions where any of the four natural hazards historically occurred (n = 3,722). Those species with at least a quarter of their range subjected to a high relative impact were considered at high risk (n = 2,001) of extinction due to natural hazards. In total, 834 reptiles, 617 amphibians, 302 birds, and 248 mammals were at high risk and they were mainly distributed on islands and in the tropics. Hurricanes (n = 983) and earthquakes (n = 868) affected most species, while tsunamis (n = 272), and volcanoes (n = 171) affected considerably fewer. The region with the highest number of species at high risk was the Pacific Ring of Fire, especially due to volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, while hurricane-related high-risk species were concentrated in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and northwestern Pacific Ocean. Our study provides important information regarding the species at risk due to natural hazards and can help guide conservation attention and efforts to safeguard their survival.