Worldwide, about 15.5% (approximately 160,000 km) of coastal areas are intact. The rest have areas with some type of impact caused by human activity, such as fishing or climate change.
Of the remaining 84.5%, 14% have practically no intact areas, distributed in coastal regions of 26 countries where the human impact was high, such as islands and archipelagos (Singapore, Aruba and Dominica are some of the examples), but also in continental regions of countries in Africa and Asia.
The results are from a study by researchers from the University of Queensland and Melbourne (Australia), the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA), the University of British Columbia (Canada) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS, in acronym in English), published in February in the journal Conservation Biology.
Currently, nearly three-quarters (74%) of the world’s population live in coastal areas or close to coastal regions, defined as within 50 km of the ocean.
Among the countries or regions with intact areas are Canada, which has preserved 53.4% ​​of its entire coastline (60,855 km, or 7.93% of the global value), Russia, with 40.7% of its coastal region conserved. (34,737 km, or 4.52% of the world value) and Greenland, with 44.1% (about 19 thousand km, equivalent to 2.5% of the planet’s total).
Among those with a reduced impact, with about 60% to 80% of the area intact, are Brazil, Chile, Australia, the United States, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Falkland Islands and the Solomon Islands.
In addition, the research included areas considered to be protected, which are usually parks or territorial demarcations with some type of legislation that prevents their degradation. Worldwide, 16.4% of coastal regions fall into this category, according to analyzed data from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA).
Brazilian data analyzed by the study show that 26.82% of the Brazilian coast has protected areas, while in 68.5% of the country, coastal areas have less than 20% of preservation. In places where there is land and coastal preservation, for example in the Lagamar da Cananeia State Park, on the south coast of São Paulo, the coastal area is almost 100% preserved, with low human impact.
The human impacts found were greater in coastal areas close to the so-called “submerged aquatic forests” formed by algae, savannas and coral reefs, with more than 70% of these formations presenting the classification of high human pressure (when there is 0% to 20% intact areas).
Regions close to deserts, forests or mangroves were the most preserved areas (from 80% to 100% intact), although they account for less than 4% of global coastal areas.
According to Brooke Williams, a researcher at the University of Queensland and first author of the study, the importance of the oceans to human activity reinforces their need for conservation.
“This conservation is essential especially for those who need ocean resources for survival, as a source of food or income. [como a pesca] or for helping to prevent and reduce extreme storm events. These services or benefits are lost when ecosystems are degraded, with a negative impact on millions of people,” he told Sheet.
Williams points out that while in the analysis most intact coastal areas are in sparsely populated locations such as Canada, a large-scale global recovery is needed to preserve coastal regions even in densely populated locations such as the tropical region.
For her, the creation of strategic conservation parks is necessary to not only keep areas considered intact in this way, but also to preserve local communities.
“The expansion of strategically located protected areas is an important tool, but that does not mean that people cannot access coastal areas. Local communities must have the right to manage their resources in a sustainable way, and degradation starts to emerge.” when the exploitation is industrialized”, he adds.
A study published last Thursday (5) in the scientific journal Science Advances found evidence of how community participation in coastal areas is directly related to greater conservation of protected areas.
According to a joint study by the International University of Florida (USA), the Leibniz Center for Tropical Marine Research (Germany), the World Fauna Conservation Fund in Indonesia and other institutions, in six years the indicators of four areas considered to be of multipurpose for environmental protection (when some kind of human activity is possible) there was an increase in the total biomass of fish from at least seven families found there.
“That the frequency of fines and participation in the decision-making process of local communities and indigenous people for coastal conservation were negatively related was the most interesting finding of our study,” says Robert Fidler, a researcher at the University of Florida and first author of the article.
“Although it is difficult to say for sure, our hypothesis is that when there is more engagement of local populations in the preservation process, fewer fines are imposed and consequently more of the environment is conserved.”
Estradivari, from the University of Leibniz, points out that the Indonesian government, for example, has reinforced in recent years the importance of the community in the development of protected areas in the archipelago.
“In the last decade, social aspects have been incorporated for the delimitation of multipurpose protected areas by designating traditional marine areas, determining community representatives as patrol teams and incorporating local rules for the administration and control of protected areas”, he explains.
“We need to continue doing these actions and use what we have learned in other regions of the country and the world as an example”, he concludes.
