Increased human activity along South America’s coasts is severely impacting marine habitats and could have devastating effects on the people, plants, and animals that rely on them.

According to a new comprehensive study released by The Nature Conservancy, many South American countries face mounting threats to their coastal and marine environments and suffer from a startling lack of marine protected areas.

The study finds that:

• 14 of 16 ecoregions examined have minimal protection — less than 5 percent.
• 8 of the ecoregions examined have a level of less than 1 percent protection.
• 57 percent of the marine coastline studied is being impacted by "high" or "very high" use.

Conservancy scientists believe that increased human use and a dearth of marine protected areas could have serious impacts on marine life throughout the region — including the already-threatened Humboldt Penguin, which relies for survival on the anchovy-laden waters off South America's Pacific coast.

Increased Human Use is the Culprit

“Without exception, South America's coastal and marine habitats are underprotected and increasingly subjected to the impacts of human use,” says Anthony Chatwin, the director of The Nature Conservancy’s South America marine program and editor of the new report, entitled "Priorities for Coastal and Marine Conservation in South America." 

“Unsustainable fishing practices will eventually deplete local resources," Chatwin adds. "These practices will cause cascading environmental effects such as limiting food availability for other marine organisms. They'll also limit supply and cause increases in price for the consumer.”

As the fishing industry has increased along the coast, the Humboldt Penguin population has been cut nearly in half — falling from 20,000 in the early 1980s to around 13,000 today. In fact, the Humboldt Penguin’s numbers have dropped so precipitously and the threats it faces have become so numerous, that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering it for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

But humans also stand to suffer from further coastal degradation. "A significant portion of the South American population depends on coastal and marine resources for their subsistence,” Chatwin notes. 

Doubling Protected Areas to Face Myriad Threats

The Conservancy is working with government organizations and private-sector partners in six South American countries to execute coastal and marine conservation planning and identify priority areas for conservation in each country.
 
So far, these groups have identified more than 96 million acres of potential new coastal and marine protected areas throughout South America. If implemented, these protected areas would more than double the coastal and marine protected areas on the continent.

While the plan to increase marine protected areas in South America may seem ambitious, the challenges the continent faces require an overwhelming response. South American marine areas face threats that range from pollution, resource extraction and urban development to tourism, invasive species and climate change.

Many of these threats are interrelated. For example, unchecked development in coastal areas often overwhelms a country’s infrastructure, causing increases in pollution when raw sewage is pumped from an urban area directly into the sea.

“In Brazil, 80 percent of the urban population is not serviced by public sewage systems,” Chatwin notes. “Estuaries are often focal points for urban development and therefore suffer the impacts of untreated pollution.”

Pushing the Penguin to the Brink

Threats also often combine in surprising ways to push species already at risk to the brink. In the case of the Humboldt Penguin, the species is continuously stressed by a loss of food due to overfishing, and is increasingly threatened by the effects of climate change.

The penguin’s habitat — and the Humboldt Current in particular, which flows the length of the Chilean coast and up to the Galapagos Islands — is susceptible to the influences of El Niño events, which can cause extreme food shortages for marine life.

During these events, the cold north-flowing waters of the Humboldt Current are displaced by warmer waters flowing from the central Pacific. This displacement causes a reduction in phytoplankton, the building block of the Humboldt food chain, creating food shortages across the area.

Climate change has been shown to be one of the primary drivers of an increase in El Niño events, and previous El Niño shifts have caused measurable decreases in populations of  Humboldt Penguins and other marine animals.

Time to Act

While the threats seem daunting, the political and social will to create substantial protected areas along South America’s coast is growing. All of South America’s coastal nations have signed the Convention on Biological Diversity and are committed to creating and strengthening systems of marine protected areas by 2012. However, funding for marine protection on the continent remains a challenge.

“In the few cases where marine protected areas have been created, many governments around South America still lack the resources to adequately enforce the regulations,” Chatwin says.

“We still have a long way to go to turn a greater appreciation for the environment into conservation action, but the important steps that have been taken by both governments and local people give me hope.”  

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Harold E. Malde (Punta Arenas in Chile, South America); Photo © Alfonso Blanco/TNC (Humboldt Penguins); map © Demian Rybock/TNC (South America).