CSS Brazil - Parque das Aves

The Center for Species Survival Brazil, established in 2019 in Foz do Iguaçu, is a three-way partnership among the SSC Chair’s Office, the SSC Conservation Planning Specialist Group (CPSG) and Parque das Aves, the host institution. The center serves as a national hub to capitalize on the experience and tools of the IUCN network to help governments, NGOs and communities achieve their conservation goals. This initiative builds capacity and dialogue with other national efforts, including public policies coordinated by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation and Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden Research Institute such as national Red List assessments and action plans.

About our work

CSS Brazil's conservation priorities are endemism and extinction vulnerability. Their main roles are to support National Red Lists and conservation planning, as well as the development of processes to connect national structures efficiently with global tools and tracking to maximize support and opportunities in compliance with national and international goals.

The Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), is the Brazilian environmental agency responsible for the National Red List assessments and planning for fauna. CSS Brazil signed a Cooperation Agreement with ICMBio, SSC, and CPSG aiming to cooperate for improving and integrating national extinction risk assessments, and conservation planning, as well as, to build the capacity of ICMBio servers and collaborators in the use of IUCN tools and processes.

By integrating conservation planning into the regional resource center as well as global Red Listing, it is possible to identify which species most need help, and then convene facilitated, multi-stakeholder workshops within Brazil to make a strategic plan to save species. CPSG provides training in key skill sets, analysis workshops, and provides facilitators to mediate the creation of effective plans. CSS Brazil embraces CPSG's Principles and Steps and the One Plan approach to species conservation, where the development of management strategies and conservation actions is done by all responsible parties for all populations of a species, whether inside or outside their natural range.

CSS Brazil, through the Center for Conservation of Atlantic Rainforest Birds | Instituto Claravis and their host institution, Parque das Aves took up as a flagship project the Birds of the Atlantic Rainforest. This is currently the largest continental avian extinction crisis on the planet, with many species with 100 or fewer individuals remaining in total distribution. As a result of the last three years’ work, CPSG workshop results are officially incorporated into the Brazilian government's National Action Plans to save species, clearing the way for effective action involving everyone working on the ground to save a species, create protected areas, or to require strategic federal, state or local government cooperation in combating animal trafficking or creating new legislation, for example.

Parque das Aves and partners carry this forward by creating and executing fieldwork initiatives and projects which follow CPSG’s strategic, multi-stakeholder plans to save species. The flagship project is a kind of arena to test out forms of cooperation for Brazil and to feel what can be achieved through different formats; what CSS Brazil achieves here can be followed through for many different species groups.

Supporting the Species Conservation

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Brazilian endemic species
Brazil hosts the greatest biodiversity with the second-highest number of endemic species in the world, this comes with great conservation responsibility. CSS Brazil is working to ensure that Brazilian endemic species are included in the IUCN Red List while improving the national assessment process and helping with data exchange to align categories between the national and the global Red List. This integration will also strengthen Brazilian participation in international conservation policies and opportunities. Besides, the Center seeks to ensure that the best information available on Brazilian species is used for the assessment of the species' extinction risk. Additionally, CSS Brazil considers requests for conservation planning involving endemic species as priorities.

2
We organize and facilitate conservation planning workshops, bringing together zoos, government authorities, conservation organizations, researchers, local communities, and others to devise action plans for some of the world's most threatened species.

Most of our demands are identified within the National Action Plans coordinated by ICMBio, the Brazilian government agency for biodiversity conservation, and our workshop results feed back into those Plans. Additionally, we receive requests from abroad, mainly from South America. In these cases, we co-organize and facilitate the workshops or carry out more specific tasks, such as helping to design the agenda.

                    Conservation program: Cherry-throated tanager
                  
3
The project "An integrative approach to advance the conservation of the biodiversity of endangered species in the Brazilian Cerrado" aimed to build capacity to apply the tools of the IUCN in Brazil and to improve integration with international strategies, while advancing the management of the country’s natural resources, with emphasis on the Cerrado biome. To this end, we focused on five specific objectives:(i) the elaboration of the second cycle of the National Action Plan for the Conservation of the Faveiro-de-Wilson (Dimorphandra wilsonii Rizzini), (ii) the application of the IUCN Green Status of Species to assess the recovery potential and conservation status of Uebelmannia buiningii and 9 other endemic and threatened cacti, (iii) the enhancement of Fauna Species Extinction Risk Assessment System (SALVE) to allow its integration with IUCN Species Information System (SIS), allowing Brazilian national assessments to be incorporated into IUCN Red List global assessments, (iv) the translation of the “Guidelines for using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria” and the “IUCN Red List Online Course” into Portuguese and, (v) the communication of project actions, results, and impacts.

                    Projeto CEPF

Meet our team

Carmel Croukamp

CEO

EXPERTISE: Species conservation action

Fabiana Lopes Rocha

Species Survival Head Officer

Fabiana is the Head officer at the Center for Species Survival Brazil, a three-way partnership of IUCN SSC, the Conservation Planning Specialist Group - CPSG, and Parque das Aves. She is wildlife veterinary and ecologist, has a MS degree in Ecology and Conservation from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul and Ph.D. in Science from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil. Her academic interest is in the areas of ecology, parasitology, and conservation of wild mammals, with an emphasis on carnivores and One Health. Fabiana has experience with conservation planning and is a certified facilitator. Her work now is focused on bringing global standards and improving national capacity to assess, plan, act within governmental agencies, NGOs, and other relevant stakeholders to save species.

EXPERTISE: Species conservation action, Species conservation science

Eugenia Cordero Schmidt

Species Survival Officer

Eugenia is a Costa Rican biologist who graduated from the Universidad de Costa Rica and has a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Ecology from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. She has worked with bats for over ten years studying their interactions with plants. She has been involved with ecology and conservation projects in Central America and northeastern Brazil, using environmental education and communication as essential tools. As a Species Survival Officer at the Center for Species Survival Brazil (CSS Brazil), she is now focused on conservation planning to save species and is the communication focal point. In 2022, she enrolled on the CPSG Planner Development Path to become a certified facilitator.

EXPERTISE: Species conservation action, Species conservation science

Rosana Subirá

Species Survival Officer

Rosana is a biologist from PUC Minas and has a master's degree in Ecology from the Universidade de Brasília. She worked for almost 20 years in public management, always in roles related to wildlife conservation. For nine years, she was the coordinator of conservation strategies at the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). There she coordinated the processes of the National Red List and the development and implementation of tools for the conservation of fauna, such as National Action Plans (PANs), Plans for Reducing the Impact of Anthropogenic Activities on Biodiversity (PRIM), and the integrated management of endangered native species. In 2018, she was responsible for editing the Brazil Red Book of Threatened Species of Fauna. As a Species Survival Officer at the Center for Species Survival Brazil (CSS Brazil) she is the Red List focal point.

EXPERTISE: Species conservation science

Photo: Fabiana Rocha