The importance of protected areas and Indigenous lands in securing ecosystem services and biodiversity in the Cerrado

Assessing conservation areas’ effectiveness in safeguarding ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity is mandatory in a world under intense human pressure. We evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas (PA) and Indigenous lands (IL) to represent five ES and threatened species in the Brazilian Cerrado. We compared the magnitude of ES and biodiversity recorded in each PA and IL (observed values) with that captured by reserves located randomly across the Cerrado (random values). We found that 23.8% of PA and 32.8% of IL were highly effective (i.e. observed value ≥ 75% of the random values) in representing three or more ES. Regarding biodiversity, 42.2% and 40.3% of PA were highly effective in representing threatened plant and vertebrate species, respectively; while 13.1% and 63.9% of IL were highly effective in capturing these species. The entire PA network performed better than expected based on its area for water yield, sediment retention, and threatened species. Likewise, the IL network showed a disproportionately high amount of water yield, carbon storage, and threatened vertebrate species records considering its area. Our results provide evidence that PA and IL are essential for ensuring conservation in the region and call attention to the need to strengthen these reserves politically.