- Jaguars are essential to healthy ecosystems but have been eradicated from almost 50% of their historical range, and by some estimates, only 64,000 individuals remain.
- Brazil is home to half of the world's jaguars, and a group of researchers has identified the highest-priority protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon for jaguar conservation.
- The top 10 highest-priority protected areas fall primarily across the arc of deforestation in southern and western Brazil, and eight of these are Indigenous territories.
- Researchers say conservation efforts must include strengthened participation of Indigenous peoples and local communities, increased funding and support for protected areas and environmental agencies, and the implementation of more robust environmental policies.
A group of researchers has now identified the highest-priority protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon for jaguar conservation. Most of these areas fall along the Arc of Deforestation in the southern Amazon, where forest loss has been most intense over past decades. Here, in the world’s largest rainforest, jaguars are threatened by deforestation and fires at the hands of humans.
According to the study, the top 10 highest-priority protected areas are the Araribóia, Apyterewa, Cachoeira Seca, Kayapó, Marãiwatsédé, Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, Xingu, and Yanomami Indigenous territories, along with the Terra do Meio Ecological Station, and Mapinguari National Park.
The Yanomami Indigenous Territory, covering an area the size of Portugal, has the highest population of jaguars, with a conservative estimate of 1,003 individuals. The smallest population is Marãiwatsédé, an area nearly one-sixtieth the size of the Yanomami territory, with an estimated 16 jaguars.
The results, published in the journal Communications Biology, considered jaguar density and population size and used a threat index (TI) to calculate the risks posed to the species across all 477 protected areas in Brazil. These threats include habitat loss, fragmentation, killings, roadkill, mining, and fires.
Most of ‘top ten’ hotspots for jaguar conservation are in Brazil’s Indigenous territories