Extractive reserves and agro-extractive settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon created between 2004 and 2006.

<p>Extractive reserves and agro-extractive settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon created between 2004 and 2006.</p

Accessibility of sustainable use reserves.

<p>Sustainable use reserve accessibility in the Brazilian Amazon. Distance of Federal sustainable use reserves (PAEs, grey boxes, n = 36; RESEXs, clear boxes, n = 13) (no dash) and their buffer zones (10 km radius) (dashed) to (a) rivers (all water courses over 100 m width) and (b) roads (i.e. the mean distance in km of all grid cells within the zone). River data were sourced from INPE, road data were sourced from IMAZON.</p

Summary of covariate balance between reserves inside and buffers.

<p>Summary of covariate balance between reserves inside and buffers.</p

Fire occurrence in Federal sustainable use reserves in Legal Brazilian Amazon created between 2004–2006 and their buffer zones (10 km radius).

<p>Fire occurrence in Federal sustainable use reserves in Legal Brazilian Amazon created between 2004–2006 and their buffer zones (10 km radius).</p

Amazonian smallholder fire management.

<p>Amazonian smallholder fire management (timing of fires in relation to rainfall) in sustainable use reserves. Model residual variance output (log10+1) for the models of antecedent precipitation index (API) and fire likelihood before and after creation of Federal sustainable use reserves (SURs) in the Brazilian Amazon, including (a) PAEs and (c) RESEXs and their buffer zones (10 km radius, panels b and d respectively). Reserve creation was only significant in the PAE buffer zones.</p

Spatial fire and human population density.

<p>Fire density and human population density in study sustainable use reserves. Fire density (a) and human population density (b) in Federal sustainable use reserves (SURs) (PAEs, n = 36; RESEXs, n = 13) and their buffer zones (10 km radius) in the Brazilian Amazon. Whiskers indicate the 10^th and 90^th percentiles, outliers are indicated with black dots. Fire density is MODIS hotspots km^-2 between 2001–2009. Human population density is (people km^-2 in 2007) sourced from the IBGE 2007 census.</p

Study sites and geospatial data preparation.

<p>The Legal Brazilian Amazon (a) showing the Federal sustainable use reserves (n = 49) decreed between 2004 and 2006 that were the foci of this study. These sustainable use reserves include `Agro-Extractive Projects`(PAEs—Portuguese acronym) and `Extractive Reserves`(RESEXs). The reserve denoted by an arrow is highlighted as an example PAE with (b) 10 km buffer, (c) indigenous lands removed (d) with the area of rivers removed, and (e) showing hotspots in relation to the PAE and buffer for the study period (2001–2009) and other layers (i.e. roads and population data) used within the analysis.</p

Research questions applied and the data and time frame pertaining to the analytical approach.

<p>Research questions applied and the data and time frame pertaining to the analytical approach.</p

Connected conservation: rethinking conservation for a telecoupled world

The convergence of the biodiversity and climate crises, widening of wealth inequality, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the urgent need to mobilize change to secure sustainable futures. Centres of tropical biodiversity are a major focus of conservation efforts, delivered in predominantly site-level interventions often incorporating alternative-livelihood provision or poverty-alleviation components. Yet, a focus on site-level intervention is ill-equipped to address the disproportionate role of (often distant) wealth in biodiversity collapse. Further these approaches often attempt to ‘resolve’ local economic poverty in order to safeguard biodiversity in a seemingly virtuous act, potentially overlooking local communities as the living locus of solutions to the biodiversity crisis. We offer Connected Conservation: a dual-branched conservation model that commands novel actions to tackle distant wealth-related drivers of biodiversity decline, while enhancing site-level conservation to empower biodiversity stewards. We synthesize diverse literatures to outline the need for this shift in conservation practice. We identify three dominant negative flows arising in centres of wealth that disproportionately undermine biodiversity, and highlight the three key positive, though marginalized, flows that enhance biodiversity and exist within biocultural centres. Connected Conservation works to amplify the positive flows, and diminish the negative flows, and thereby orientates towards desired states with justice at the centre. We identify connected conservation actions that can be applied and replicated to address the telecoupled, wealth-related reality of biodiversity collapse while empowering contemporary biodiversity stewards. The approach calls for conservation to extend its collaborations across sectors in order to deliver to transformative change.</p