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The Atlantic forest biome is a key provider of ecosystem services (ES) delivered worldwide. The region presents a complex history of land use changes based on human demands that have decreased its native vegetation and the potential to integrate biodiversity and human wellbeing. In this chapter, we described the profile of the scientific output on ES for the Atlantic forest; the spatial patterns of ES; projected scenarios, particularly considering the potential for ecosystem restoration; and the profile of public policies and private practices based on ES in the region. We emphasize that the integration of multiple strategies that fill the knowledge gaps, identify local demands and trade-offs, and promote dialogue between multiple sectors will be key to ensure the provisioning of ES in the Atlantic Forest in the coming years.

Understanding the links between biodiversity, ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being (HWB) is a prerequisite for furthering the agenda of several multilateral environmental agreements and global goals. We performed a systematic review to discuss the extent to which biodiversity research has addressed the interface between ES and HWB and we focused on Brazil as a case study of global relevance. We found that biodiversity research in Brazil remains focused predominantly on biological processes and that research on the links with ES and HWB is in its early phases, exhibiting scarce connections with provisioning and cultural services. This pattern reveals the nature of existing funding policies and scientific gaps in the country. Given the global relevance of Brazil’s stock of biodiversity and ES, we argue that research on their links with HWB will be a crucial element of the national and global process of achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Rio Doce watershed has centuries of land degradation and it was the main victim of the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history. This process of deforestation and soil erosion could be significantly mitigated if compliance to the new Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law (NVPL) would be ensured. Here, we show how the percentage of forest kept in areas of permanent preservation (APP) required by the NVPL drives the overall resilience and resistance of the entire Rio Doce watershed and how it contributes to the national restoration commitments. We used water quality as a proxy for watershed resilience and resistance and we found that compliance to NVPL would require restoration of about 716 thousand hectares of riverine forest across the watershed. We found that increased forested areas improved watershed resistance and resilience during the rainy and dry seasons, respectively. Our estimates suggest that the implementation of the NVPL could improve water quality, in addition to removing 14 Gt CO 2 yr −1 ha −1 from the atmosphere. At this scale, the forest restoration effort would represent 6% of Brazil's restoration commitment. Financial feasibility of such a restoration enterprise is also achievable; at the highest possible estimate, it would compromise about 59% of the total fund proposed by the mining companies responsible for the accident. Given the low socioeconomic indicators of this basin, intervention should be designed so as to improve local livelihoods and, therefore, contribute to local adaptation and sustainable development.

Strategies for establishing priorities for the sustainability agenda by addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are prominent in the scientific literature. Some studies have suggested that sustainability will emerge from different backgrounds, such as through biosphere or societal transformations, whereas other approaches have searched for potential synergies and trade-offs between SDGs. Here, we analysed the main SDG database to investigate the caveats and cooperation opportunities to turn initiatives from local to global sustainability. We established an innovative conceptual framework to set up different sustainability trends for all SDGs and classified countries accordingly. We revealed that despite the significant advance in the last years, the sustainability agenda is still based on national rather than global performance. Consequently, the current efforts are promoting local sustainability trends with great spillover among countries. ‘Green’ SDGs 14 and 15 often had trade-offs or are uncoupled of social and economic SDGs. It suggests that the role ecosystem services play in connecting biodiversity and human wellbeing is not well incorporated into policies and practices. We argue that the world's shift towards global sustainability will depend strongly on cooperation among countries, strengthen existing synergies between SDGs and reduce negative externalities to other specific agendas.

Biodiversity and ecosystems are important elements for addressing national and global socioeconomic and environmental crises, since they provide new development opportunities, for example, as source of job and income creation, and reduction in poverty and socioeconomic inequity. Brazilian biological diversity is also expressed in its immense cultural diversity, with a great variety of knowledge holders. These peoples possess vast knowledge on agrobiodiversity, fishing, fire management, natural medicine, among others of commercial, cultural and spiritual value. The main conclusions of this Summary for Police Makers is that land use changes and climate changes have been - and will continue to be throughout this century - the main drivers that result in the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the country. Political interventions at different levels (from local to national, from public to private) and the enforcement of existing laws (regulatory mechanisms and incentives) are required to cope with the mitigation of the negative impacts of biodiversity and ecosystem services loss. Brazil has already a wide variety of policy instruments and socioenvironmental governance options, as well as global commitments (ODS, Aich Targets, Paris Agreement) related to the objective of a sustainable future. However, inefficient management control or lack of incentive to comply with the rules pose risks to consolidating the path to this future. The country has strong and capable institutions, but infrastructural problems, slow processes, inefficient measurements and judicial, social and ecological conflicts obstruct a proficient performance. There is a lack of communication between science and society which needs to be improved by establishing an effective flow that makes communication inclusive and representative, reaching public and private decision makers. Permanent efforts to integrate Science and policy knowledges are desirable to build confidence between policy makers and researchers. Resumo: A biodiversidade e os ecossistemas são elementos importantes para enfrentar as crises socioeconômicas e ambientais nacionais e globais, uma vez que proporcionam novas oportunidades de desenvolvimento. Incorporar a biodiversidade na vida cotidiana é uma oportunidade de ouro para promover o uso sustentável da biodiversidade e dos serviços ecossistêmicos. A conservação e a restauração da biodiversidade, dos ecossistemas e de seus serviços associados mostram potencial para um novo desenvolvimento social e econômico, como fonte de geração de emprego e renda, redução da pobreza e da desigualdade socioeconômica. A diversidade biológica brasileira também se expressa em sua imensa diversidade cultural, com uma grande variedade de detentores de conhecimento indígenas e tradicionais. Esses povos possuem vasto conhecimento sobre agrobiodiversidade, pesca, manejo do fogo, medicina natural, entre outros de valor comercial, cultural e espiritual. As principais conclusões deste Sumário para Tomadores de Decisão é que as mudanças no uso da terra e as mudanças climáticas tenham sido - e continuarão sendo ao longo deste século - os principais vetores da perda de biodiversidade e serviços ecossistêmicos no país. Intervenções políticas em diferentes níveis (do local ao nacional, do público ao privado) e a aplicação das leis existentes (mecanismos regulatórios e incentivos) são necessárias para promover a mitigação dos impactos negativos sobre a biodiversidade e a perda de serviços ecossistêmicos. O Brasil já possui uma ampla variedade de instrumentos de política e opções de governança socioambiental, bem como compromissos globais (ODS, Metas de Aichi, Acordo de Paris) relacionados à possibilidade de um futuro sustentável. Entretanto, o controle ineficiente da gestão ou a falta de incentivo para cumprir as regras traz riscos para a consolidação do caminho para esse futuro. O país tem instituições fortes e capazes, mas problemas de infraestrutura, processos lentos, medidas ineficazes e conflitos judiciais, sociais e ecológicos impedem a realização de um desempenho eficiente. Há uma falta de comunicação entre a ciência e a sociedade que precisa ser melhorada por meio do estabelecimento de um fluxo efetivo que torne a comunicação inclusiva e representativa, alcançando os tomadores de decisão públicos e privados. Esforços permanentes para integrar essas duas esferas de conhecimento na sociedade são desejáveis para criar confiança entre os formuladores de políticas e os pesquisadores.

A group of scientists created in 2015 the Brazilian Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BPBES), the first national-level initiative to emerge independently but inspired by the enterprise undertaken by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The main goal of BPBES is to develop assessment and special reports in co-production and dialogue with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in Brazil, but independently from governmental perusal. This paper describes BPBES’s principles, design, routine practices, outputs, achievements, challenges, near-future perspectives, and costs. After three and a half years of activities, BPBES emerges as a link that connects various organisations within a boundary chain at the science-policy interface. By navigating the socioecological arena, engaging with various actors, we argue that BPBES is an emerging important player in conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services in Brazil. Differently from the regular scientific panel that produces assessment reports and special reports from time to time, we discuss the BPBES approach whereby such reports are due to be continuously updated by a system that combines consultation to and engagement of multiple actors, curators of specific themes, revision work, and communication to non-expert audiences. Challenges include how to avoid fatigue typical of extensive participatory processes, how to deal with the issue of representativeness of stakeholders selected, and long-term fundraising strategy. Finally, we discuss the potential relevance of other national level initiatives to facilitate on-the-ground implementation of practices and aspirations fostered by intergovernmental panels.

The sub-discipline of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) has emerged as a central topic in contemporary ecological research. However, to date no study has evaluated the prominence and publication biases in BEF research. Herein we report the results of a careful quantitative assessment of BEF research published in five core general ecology journals from 1990 to 2007 to determine the position of BEF research within ecology, identify patterns of research effort within BEF research, and discuss their probable proximal and historical causes. The relative importance of BEF publications increased exponentially during the period analyzed and was significantly greater than the average growth of ecological literature, affirming the prominence of BEF as a current paradigm in ecology. However, BEF research exhibited a strong bias toward experimental studies on terrestrial plant communities, with significantly lower effort devoted to the functional aspects of biodiversity in aquatic systems, multiple trophic level systems, and animal or microbial communities. Such trends may be explained by a combination of methodological adequacy and historic epistemological differences in ecological thinking. We suggest that BEF researchers should direct more effort toward the study of aquatic systems and animal communities, emphasize long-term and trophically complex experiments, such as those with multi-trophic microbial communities, employ larger-scale field observational studies and increase the use of integrative and theoretical studies. Many technical and analytical methodologies that are already employed in ecological research, such as stable isotopes, paleobiology, remote sensing, and model selection criteria, can facilitate these aims. Overcoming the above-mentioned shortcomings of current BEF research will greatly improve our ability to predict how biodiversity loss will affect ecosystem processes and services in natural ecosystems.