Brazilian savanna strictly protected areas: linking physical habitat and social science to protect stream fish fauna

Abstract

Protected areas such as National Parks are essential tools for biodiversity conservation programs. However, the creation of protected areas is often restricted to the protection of terrestrial fauna and flora. Freshwater habitats are rarely considered and are usually only protected as consequence of their inclusion within terrestrial areas. The lack of data on the aquatic ecosystems, especially for fish, impose difficulties in implementing effective strategies for ichthyofauna conservation. Therefore, describing the composition and distribution of fish, quantifying the species diversity and understanding the humans and nature relationship are effective tools in protection planning, especially in biodiversity hotspots such as the Brazilian Savanna. In this context, the main objective of this study was to understand the role of National Parks in the protection of the fish fauna and to propose strategies for the conservation and management of streams based on biological, physical and social data. We sampled 255 physical habitat metrics in 60 streams inside and outside of National Parks in the São Francisco river basin, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. We captured 17.053 fish from 64 species. We administered questionnaires to households around each protected area where we evaluated the socio-economic and demographic characteristics and the measures of exposure to conservation initiatives of the participants. Fish physical habitats and population interviews data allow the understanding that the creation or enlargement of National Parks are excellent strategies for fish biodiversity protection (Manuscript 1). However, when considering the enlargement of National Parks, it is necessary to avoid unacceptable levels of social impact, and a feasible alternative is to improve the education, where knowledge is converted into more favorable environmental attitudes to National Parks and the environment, especially the freshwater system (Manuscript 2). Thus, with conceptual coexistence between ‘human/social’ and ‘nature/natural’, it is crucial to understand that physical habitat metric will vary according to the neighbor’s environmental knowledge and environmental attitude (Manuscript 3) in order to seek efficient management for the conservation streams and icthyofauna.