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Presents a history of biological diversity conservation in Brazil. Leadership in creating a national protected areas system; Development of national and state lists of threatened species; Emergence of strong and influential nongovernmental conservation organizations; Advance of conservation science in the country and the critical role that it has played.

Presents an introduction to academic papers on biological diversity conservation challenges and opportunities in Brazil, published in the June 2005 issue of the scholarly periodical "Conservation Biology". History, context, and status of conservation; Protected areas; Number of species; State of knowledge, threats, conservation status, and habitat assessment for plants.

Protected areas are widely recognized for their value in the conservation of biodiversity. Their establishment and management sometimes impose costs, however, such as the direct cost of protection and management activities and the opportunity cost to local residents who have to forego natural resource extraction. Different biodiversity currencies have different advantages and problems. There is an inevitable tradeoff between biological detail and data availability. Data availability alone would therefore support the use of broad-scale biodiversity attributes. Broad-scale biodiversity features, however, suffer from several fundamental drawbacks. Using comprehensive species data is a much more promising option for the planning of protected areas for biodiversity than relying on broad-scale attributes.

Assesses the impacts of anthropogenic threats on 93 protected areas in 22 tropical countries to test the hypothesis that parks are an effective means to protect tropical biodiversity. Success of the majority of parks at stopping land clearing; Parks' ability to mitigate togging, hunting, fire, and grazing; Basic management activities.