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Although Brazil has one of the world's largest systems of protected areas, we do not know to what extent its marine protected areas (MPAs) are functioning as repositories of threatened species. Here we synthesized governmental and scientific information on the country's 75 federal MPAs to assess whether their size, age, protection group, visitation and management effectiveness affect the number of threatened animal species present within their boundaries. The MPAs harbored 133 threatened species, which corresponds to 78.2% of the 170 threatened marine animal species listed for the country. On average, there were 10.1 threatened species per MPA (varying from 1 to 48), but 13 MPAs did not report any. As expected, the number of threatened species was greater in no-take, larger, and older MPAs with management plan. The MPA effectiveness index averaged 0.55 (0.43–0.74), indicating moderate effectiveness for the entire federal system. The level of management effectiveness in 2022 and the visitation accumulated between 2012 and 2021 did not significantly affect the number of threatened species. Our results demonstrate that Brazilian MPAs do serve as repositories for threatened animal species, but reveal serious bottlenecks in the management of official databases, dissemination of information to society, and biodiversity inventory and monitoring. We recommend (i) improvements in working conditions for MPA officials; (ii) advances in data management and publicization; (iii) partnerships of MPA managers with universities, research institutions, and non-governmental organizations; and (iv) the development of a broad, long-term biodiversity monitoring program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation solves the dilemma of economic growth, energy conservation, and ecological protection to achieve innovation-driven sustainable development. On this premise, it is reasonable to assess the performance of technology innovation for promoting green development. In this context, this study examines green innovation efficiency (GIE) and its influencing mechanisms in rapidly emerging BRICST economies (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Turkey) during 2000–2021 by adopting the novel super ray slack-based measure model with undesirable output and the dynamic panel data model. As a novelty, we have evaluated GIE by constructing a comprehensive input–output index system based on innovation, energy, economic, and environmental factors. The empirical result reveals an increasing wave-shaped trend of GIE fluctuating around 0.606, failing to be DEA-efficient where inefficient countries need to improve by at least 39.40% to become efficient. There is an emerging gap with individual differences among countries, which is highest in Brazil and lowest in India. Moreover, green technology development and environmental regulation are highly conductive to improve GIE. However, foreign direct investment and government support have a mere positive effect, while trade openness has an inhibitory impact on GIE. These results suggest that individual governments should support technical cooperative relationships to formulate stringent but distinct green innovation policies based on domestic conditions, improve innovation-driven technological development and environmental regulation, encourage adoption and utilization of energy-efficient and clean technologies, enhance sustainable foreign investment and governmental research and development funds, synchronize trade baskets to improve trade diversification, and strengthen absorptive capacity of domestic enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Amazon is under threat due to an unprecedented attack on environmental legislation. The municipality of Manicoré, Brazil, is an example of how the weakening of laws affect the conservation of biodiversity in the region. Manicoré is characterized as a scientifically understudied area, with high biodiversity potential and is likely to contain many species not yet described. Recently, 801 species of angiosperms were listed for this municipality, and during the collection expeditions it was possible to verify the effects of the weakening of environmental policies and laws. In this work, we show how a set of local actions can affect the balance of power and economic exploitation in a region in the Amazon. The examples we highlight here help to understand the entire current context of conservation in the Amazon, as we dissect the details of the political dynamics that weaken the biodiversity protection network and accelerate the exploitation of natural resources in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing quality reference values (QRVs) for rare earth elements (REEs) in soils is essential for the screening of these emergent contaminants. Currently, Brazil has the second-largest reserve of REEs, but data regarding background concentrations and distributions in soils remain scarce. The aim of this study was to establish the QRVs and assess the spatial distribution of REEs in soils, including REE fractionations and anomalies in (Piauí) state (251,529.186 km2), northeastern Brazil. This study reports the most detailed data on REE geochemistry in Brazilian soils. A total of 243 composite soil samples was collected at 0–20 cm depth. The mean background concentrations in soils followed the abundance of the earth's upper crust: Ce > La > Nd > Pr > Sm > Dy > Gd > Er > Yb > Eu > Tb > Lu. The ∑REEs (mg kg−1) showed the following order based on the individual mesoregions of Piauí state: Southeast (262.75) > North and Central-North (89.68) > Southwest (40.33). The highest QRVs were observed in the Southeast mesoregion. The establishment of QRVs based on the mesoregion scale improves data representativeness and the monitoring of natural REE values by identifying hot spots. Geostatistical modeling indicated significant local variability, especially in the Southeast mesoregion. The levels of these elements in this spatial zone are naturally higher than the other values across Piauí state and the mesoregion itself and indicate a high potential to exceed the QRVs. Our approach provides much needed data to help strengthen policies for both human health and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green infrastructure, and specifically urban afforestation, is one of the most important activities of city management today, because of the multitude of ecosystem services it provides. The pattern of tree planting in urban areas is related to age, ethnicity, education, and household income. Unfortunately, this issue has not been evaluated, nor has it received significant subsidized governmental actions, funding, study, or public policies in large tropical cities in developing countries. Thus, we aimed to investigate if there was a pattern of urban afforestation related by socio-territorial inequalities, in the city of São Paulo, or if there was a relationship between the number of seedlings planted over the past 4 years and zoning, socioeconomic, health, and environment variables in the neighborhoods of São Paulo, as well as to evaluate the ecosystem services provided by the planted species. Our results showed that tree planting was not oriented to increase cover of less-vegetated areas of the city and where more respiratory diseases have been registered. In fact, the number of seedlings planted over the past 4 years was very influenced by socioeconomic status of inhabitants. In this sense, wealth and education proved to be a better predictor than zoning, health, and environmental variables for the tree planting. Finally, our results reveal that supporting, provision, and cultural functions and services are being provided to São Paulo city by the selected woody species. In Sao Paulo, urban afforestation must extend to the neighborhoods that need the services the most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]