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Suscribe x MercoPress, en Español Montevideo, May 5th 2025 - 13:59 UTC The number of fatalities in Southeastern Brazil was updated to 29 on Thursday after at least 203 cities in the State of Rio Grande do Sul were hit by heavy storms which are also forecast to move on to neighboring Santa Catarina over the next few days A hydroelectric dam broke near Bento Gonçalves The main regions affected are municipalities located in the center of the state Civil Defense is warning residents of risk areas in six municipalities to leave their homes Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite (PSDB) declared a state of public calamity for 180 days after 203 municipalities in the state were affected by the heavy rains just over 40% of all the cities in the state The current phenomenon is likely to be “the biggest weather disaster” ever faced by the people of Rio Grande do Sul Leite described the situation as “absurdly exceptional” and that the rain falling in the state would cause the “worst flood ever seen” He also said that the storm has hampered rescue efforts and urged the population to seek protection in places far from areas that could suffer from river flooding and landslides “It is absolutely impossible to meet all the rescue requests in the weather conditions we are experiencing,” he said and people who are in inaccessible places,” he said There are 60 registered missing persons,“ he also noted A total of 71,306 people have been affected the Guaíba River is expected to reach the highest height ever recorded surpassing the 4.73 meters recorded in the 1941 flood the river is rising at a rate of 8 centimeters per hour and was at a height of 3.37 meters until 7 pm on Thursday ”It's going to pass 4 meters this morning,“ said Leite 160 state and federal highways have been blocked and 160 points have been georeferenced to carry out a rescue According to Civil Defense Colonel Luciano Boeira 4,600 people have been rescued and more than 2,500 civil servants are working to find those affected that heavy storms should continue this Friday and into the weekend They would not be subsiding at least until Sunday ”Instability continues over the state of Rio Grande do Sul That channel of humidity coming from the north of the country will continue over the next few days,“ said meteorologist Cátia Valente ”We still have very high volumes of rain in the northwest north of Rio Grande do Sul and the flow continues through the central region of the state and also in Campos de Cima da Serra and the entire valley region.” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva traveled to Rio Grande do Sul Thursday to meet with Leite it was decided to create an Integrated Situation Room under the coordination of the military commander of the South to organize rescue operations in all the affected regions Commenting for this story is now closed.If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page One of the most beautiful places in Brazil and the world with indescribable landscapes and enormous biodiversity in the Aparados da Serra and Serra Geral National Park are must-see attractions for lovers of adventure and nature the Green Canyons rely on Imply®️ Technology to optimize management and ensure incredible experiences for Park visitors “What surprised me most about Imply® was the agility Green Canyons relies on the Imply® Eleven360 platform which offers several intelligent tools to optimize the management of large events and attractions The solution integrates the ElevenTickets ticket sales platform and the ElevenAccess access control platform the Platform provides managers with accurate and 100% centralized information with Dashboards Graphs & Monitoring in real time over the internet With multiple integrated sales channels, tickets to access the Park are available at POS at the box office, and also through the portal: https://canionsverdes.eleventickets.com simply present your smartphone and use the QR Code received from your online purchase the ticket can be printed at home and validated via bar code at the access control 1.111 - RST 287 Km 105 | Santa Cruz do Sul | RS - Brazil imply@imply.com (+55) 51 2106-8000 Mastering the Art of Group Travel Bookings Avoid a Cultural Faux Pas: Dress Appropriately When Traveling Abroad Collette Is Celebrating YOU All Month Long The Top 24 Most Powerful Travel Agencies of 2024 The Strategic Art of Pre-Planning Luxury Vacations: A Perspective for Travel Advisors For the latest travel news, updates and deals, subscribe to the daily TravelPulse newsletter. 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All Rights Reserved. 301 Route 17 N, Suite 1150, Rutherford, NJ 07070 USA | Telephone: (201) 902-2000 Volume 4 - 2023 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frsen.2023.1099430 This article is part of the Research TopicWomen in Remote Sensing: 2022View all 16 articles Fire has been an intrinsic ecological component of the ecosystems and socio-cultural policies of human-nature interactions Using fire over grassland vegetation is a traditional practice for livestock in the highland grasslands and has economic and environmental consequences that have not yet been understood A better description of the spatio-temporal biomass burning patterns is needed to analyze the effects of creation and application in these areas This study used remote sensing techniques based on Sentinel-2 data and machine learning algorithms to identify burning scars and compare them with a national fire collection database for the highland grasslands in the Atlantic Forest Biome in Brazil The aim is to evaluate public management tools and legislation evolution during the 35 years of the time series analyzed The results indicated that 12,285 ha of grasslands were converted to other uses losing about 24% of their original formation with 10% occurring after banned this practice in 2008 The burned areas classification using the Random Forest algorithm obtained an AUC = 0.9983 Divergences in the burned area’s extent and frequency were found between the municipality’s authorized license and those classified as burned only 43% of the burned area in the Parque Estadual do Tainhas and its buffer zone had an environmental permit in the last 5 years This research’s results provide subsidies for revising and creating public policies and consequently help territorial management Currently, the AFB remnants are highly fragmented and restricted to highland grassland areas in southern Brazil, where there are mosaics of Araucaria (Brazilian pine) forests and grasslands linked to a fire events history (Pillar et al., 2009; Meireles and Shepherd, 2015) In these areas, fire has been an intrinsic ecological component of the ecosystems, affecting the public, economic, social, and even cultural policies of human interactions with nature (Andrade et al., 2015) attributes to the municipal government the power to authorize and supervise the use of fire as a grasslands management practice in areas that cannot be mechanized or as a form of phytosanitary treatment In this study, to minimize these products limitations, such as the spatial resolution, we used Sentinel-2 data developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), which has four bands with 10 m, six with 20 m, and three bands with 60 m (ESA, 2022) this study’s objective is to improve the spatial resolution of burned areas and compare them with the national MapBiomas Fire product to evaluate the fire use legislation over time in the highland grasslands in Atlantic Forest Biome in Brazil This study was conducted in the conservation area denominate Parque Estadual do Tainhas (PET) and its buffer zone (BZ) located at latitude 29°5′15″S and longitude 50°22′4″W (Figure 1) The PET was established in 1975 to protect the grasslands and forests in the Tainhas river valley (D) Location of the municipalities that make up PET (E) Location of the PET and its BZ in relation to the highland grasslands which favors the emergence of the biogeographic conditions that can contribute to the interconnection of these units through ecological corridors helping preserve fauna and flora populations and maintain the ecosystem services balance in the region denominating as “pre-fire” images while the post-fire images were selected from July 15 to September 15 of each year when the “burning window” allowed by municipal legislation was established the function defines two bitmask values for clouds and cirrus (bit 10 and bit 11 respectively) and selects the image’s pixel quality band (QA) the function creates a mask that filters out all the pixels where the cloud and cirrus bits are equal to zero Overview of the burned area classification method We used the GEE to collect spectral signatures of the burned and unburned areas which served as samples for the model classification we used data collected from the field in the year 2020 as a reference for sampling in this year’s post-fire images This effort resulted in 7,133 sampled pixels manually collected as small polygons from burned areas (2,295 sampled pixels) and the unburned regions (4,838 sampled pixels) we used the shortwave infrared (SWIR) and near-infrared (NIR) bands and the result of the Normalized Burn Ratio spectral index (ΔNBR) calculation The NBR is a ratio of the NIR to the SWIR region, developed to identify post-fire burned areas and provide a quantitative measure of burn severity (Key and Benson, 2006). The NBR is calculated by the pre- and post-fire difference (denoted as ΔNBR) using Eqs. 1, 2 The algorithm used for our classification was the Random Forest (RF) (Breiman, 2001; Goehry et al., 2021), which is an ensemble algorithm operated by building multiple decision trees in a training session and assigning the target class by majority vote (PAL, 2005) we used the RandomForest function in the GEE library The parameters used were: number0fTrees (20) we applied a spatial filter to remove noise and fill in gaps where burned areas smaller than or equal to 1 ha (5 × 5 pixels) were removed The spatial filter selected was the Manhattan Kernel which generates a distance kernel based on rectilinear distance (city-block) Reduction is performed by calculating the mode (most common value) of the pixel values in a neighborhood defined by the specified kernel (or window) The filter size was determined considering the difference in the spatial resolution of the Landsat 8 satellite which was used for the MAPBIOMAS product methodology proposed for exclusion the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC curve) was calculated to measure and compare the binary classification model’s performance To evaluate the management tools available in conjunction with the classification data generated, we used data on the annual area burned by MapBiomas Fire—Collection 1.0 (Alencar et al., 2022) and the land use and land cover areas classified as grassland from 1985 to 2020 available in MapBiomas Collection 7.0 (Souza et al., 2020) we also used the extent area authorized for burning by Jaquirana and Cambará do Sul municipalities located within PET and its BZ The annual burned areas stationarity trend covered by grassland was checked using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test The ADF test is an “augmented” version of the Dicker-Fuller test The ADF test expands the test equation to include high-order regression processes in the model Afterward, the trend was verified through time series decomposition to verify the seasonality and the residuals. Results are obtained by first estimating the trend by applying a convolution filter to the data. Therefore, the trend is removed from the series, and the average of this unbiased series for each period is the seasonal component returned (McKinney, Perktold and Seabold, 2011) The burnt areas and the grasslands from 1985 to 2020 in the PET and its BZ are shown in (Figure 3). In this figure is highlighted in vertical dotted lines, the primary legislation, which is also presented in (Table 1) together with the grasslands and the total burned area values This analysis reveals an increasing trend for the burned area while there is a decreasing trend for grassland in the PET (A) Burned area accordingly MapBiomas Fire—Collection 1.0 and (B) Grassland accordingly MapBiomas—Collection 7.0 both in the PET and its BZ from 1985–2020 Relationship of burnt areas (hectares per year) mapped and permissions of environmental permits We can observe that the burnt areas remained low after the fire use prohibition in 1992 this pattern was not established for a long time and the highest values for the time series analyzed occurred in 1995 and 1996 with about ten thousand hectares burnt each year The most significant burned areas reduction occurred in 2002 By observing the trend curves of burnt area and area occupied by grassland formation the curve’s decline in the same years is noticed In 2002, the area corresponding to grassland was 49,359 ha, while in 2005, it was 46,345 ha. Therefore, the PET and its BZ lost more than 3,000 ha in only 3 years. These years precede the AFB Law creation (Brasil, 2006) and its regulation decree (Brasil, 2008) prohibiting new conversions of areas with native vegetation in the biome During the 35 years of the analyzed time series, 12.285 ha of grassland areas were converted to other uses, losing about 24% of their original formation, with 10% occurring after the AFB decree banned this practice in 2008 (Brasil, 2008) Finally, concerning the burned areas only when municipalities begin to legislate about the use of fire, in 2013, a trend definition and a biannual frequency can be observed, as provided by several municipal legislation (Municipio de Cambará do Sul, 2013; Municipio de Jaquirana, 2013; Municipio de São Francisco de Paula, 2013) The burned areas classification with the RF algorithm obtained an AUC = 0.9983 (Figure 4). With a visual inspection, the scar’s demarcation can be identified when comparing the pre-fire and post-fire images (Figure 5) Examples of burned area classification using RF The results show that larger areas were burned for all years than those allowed by the municipalities’ environmental permits. In addition, larger burned areas were found in our classification than those presented by the MapBiomas Fire collection, as can be seen in (Table 2) Comparison of burned areas (ha) authorized by the municipality between mapped by mapbiomas and BACHG The licenses issued correspond to only 48.09% (2018) and 43.54% (2022) of the area identified as burned in our classification For the three available years of the analyzed period from the MapBiomas collection The Mapbiomas burned areas that coincide with our classification represent only 21% of the total classified area on average (Figure 6) The MapBiomas burned omission areas are formed by scars smaller than 10 ha or with sites that present a non-continuous formation with gaps of 1 ha Representation of the comparison of classified areas in both methods for 2020 In addition to the burning extent, the frequency of areas affected by the fire was verified, and about 28% of the PET and its BZ were burned at least once, as shown in (Figure 7) the areas could present a burning frequency of 2–3 times for 5 years the results showed that 353 ha were burned 4 to 5 times exceeding the legal requirements for this period These areas are within the Jaquirana municipality territory inside the PET or near its boundaries No stationary trends were found in the time series even though there is a long history of legislation to regulate fire use and vegetation protection practices During the 20 years (1992–2012) of fire use practice prohibition, producers changed their economic profile, and extensive native grassland areas conversion to monocultures in the region occurred (Boziki, Beroldt, Printes, 2011; Buffon, Printes, Andrades-Filho, 2018) especially where other agricultural practices are not viable we noticed that legislation changes over the time series are related to changes in land use Conservation areas (CAs) in Brazil are managed under the National System of Conservation Units (SNUC), which is designed to protect the country’s diverse ecosystems (BRASIL, 2000) each with specific objectives regarding protection and use which provides full protection and allows only non-consumptive uses of natural resources This means that handling fire is not permitted inside the PET Conservation areas like the PET are essential for preserving Brazil’s rich biodiversity and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the country’s natural resources The fire management practice in the winter period is expected in the region, and it is used to remove dry biomass to provide the vegetation regrowth that will be used to feed the cattle herd in spring and summer (Pillar et al., 2009) Once forbidden, it can be replaced by other activities much more environmentally damaging than the old fire management grasslands practice, such as forestry and monocultures, which have been advancing into the grasslands (Buffon, Printes and Andrades-Filho, 2018) It was observed during the study that municipalities lack data and tools to manage and enforce current environmental legislation. So it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of existing environmental management tools regulated by municipal laws related to the use of fire (Santos and Andrades-Filho, 2021) In addition to the environmental laws presented, it was verified the irregularity in the data availability by the municipalities, which do not meet the legal provisions of free access to information in Brazil, especially regarding publicity, accessibility, and transparency, making technological advancement impossible (Brasil, 2011) The brief characteristics of the fire marks left on satellite imagery complicate the burned area’s detection. There are few fire products available globally, and only one at the national level (Alencar et al., 2022) evaluating its applicability to different regions and vegetation formations in Brazil is extremely important The strategy of using ΔNBR in conjunction with the NIR and SWIR bands for burned areas classification reduced noise and class confusion The areas with the highest commission error were exposed soil from recently cleared forestry areas Due to the rugged relief and mosaics of forest and mountainous grassland vegetation that form the area’s landscape, remote sensing data with higher spatial resolution can be explored as they become available. Therefore, Earth observation can significantly support public fire prescription policies and add to other factors that consider CO2 emissions (Herrmann, Nascimento and Freitas, 2022) This study uses remote sensing techniques to evaluate legislation related to fire use in highland grasslands in Brazil Long-term time series and exploring new enhancement methodologies are essential to identify the main impacts of human-induced changes Divergences in extent and frequency were found between the burned areas authorized by the municipalities and those classified as burned only 43% of the burned area in the PET and its BZ was licensed in the last 5 years The municipal databases had recorded only from the year 2018 and it is possible to improve the time series from the continuity of data collection Our newly burned area methodological classification developed in this article presented results that provide subsidies for reviewing and creating public policies and territorial management The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version This research was funded by Fundação de Amparo á Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) project number (2017/22269-2) The authors thank the Graduate Program in Remote Sensing at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and the Federal University of ABC in Brazil The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher Development of post-fire vegetation response-ability model in grassland mountainous ecosystem using GIS and remote sensing CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Long-term landsat-based monthly burned area dataset for the Brazilian biomes using deep learning CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Grassland degradation and restoration: A conceptual framework of stages and thresholds illustrated by southern Brazilian grasslands CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Campos do Rio Grande do Sul: Caracterização fisionômica e problemática ocupacional Brazil: Boletim do Instituto de Biociências Google Scholar Biodiversidade dos Campos de Cima da Serra Google Scholar Situação atual da utilização de agrotóxicos e destinação de embalagens na área de Proteção Ambiental Estadual Rota Sol Google Scholar que dispõe sobre a utilização e proteção da vegetação nativa do Bioma Mata Atlântica Google Scholar Dispõe sobre a utilização e proteção da vegetação nativa do Bioma Mata Atlântica Google Scholar Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação LEI No 9.985 DE 18 DE JULHO DE 2000 Google Scholar Regula o acesso a informações previsto no inciso XXXIII do art 5° no inciso II do § 3° do art 37 e no § 2° do art 216 da Constituição Federal Google Scholar CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Licenciamento ambiental do uso do fogo nos Campos de Cima da Serra Brasil: Determinação do período de pousio e sugestões para uma rotina de monitoramento Eletrônica Científica UERGS 4 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Resilience and restoration of tropical and subtropical grasslands PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Análise Espaço-Temporal do uso e cobertura do solo em São Francisco De Paula Mudanças nos sistemas agrícolas e territórios no Brasil CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Reconstructing long time series of burned areas in arid grasslands of southern Russia by satellite remote sensing CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar ESA, (2022). 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Available at: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03129751 Google Scholar Fire analysis in grasslands using remote sensing: A systematic review CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Landscape Assessment (LA) sampling and analysis methods United States: USDA Forest Service - General Technical Report RMRS-GTR Google Scholar “Time series analysis in Python with statsmodels,” in Proceedings of the 10th Python in Science Conference CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Structure and floristic similarities of upper montane forests in Serra Fina mountain range CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Municipio de Cambará do Sul Google Scholar Municipio de Jaquirana Google Scholar Municipio de São Francisco de Paula Google Scholar Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Brazil's neglected biome: The South Brazilian Campos CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Random forest classifier for remote sensing classification CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Campos Sulinos - conservação e uso sustentável da biodiversidade Brasília: Ministério do Meio Ambiente Google Scholar Understanding Brazil's catastrophic fires: Causes consequences and policy needed to prevent future tragedies CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Rio Grandedo Sul Google Scholar Rio Grandedo Sul Google Scholar Rio Grandedo Sul Plano de manejo do Parque Estadual do Tainhas Google Scholar Uso do fogo nos campos de altitude do sul do brasil: Análise do licenciamento ambiental a partir de geotecnologias Google Scholar Reconstructing three decades of land use and land cover changes in Brazilian biomes with Landsat archive and Earth engine CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Global trends of forest loss due to fire from 2001 to 2019 CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Freitas MWDd and Ometto JP (2023) Fire in highland grasslands in the Atlantic Forest Biome a burned areas time series analysis and its correlation with the legislation Received: 15 November 2022; Accepted: 02 May 2023;Published: 16 May 2023 Copyright © 2023 Herrmann, Nascimento, Freitas and Ometto. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Pamela Boelter Herrmann, cGFtZWxhLmhlcnJtYW5uQHVmcmdzLmJy Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish By 2022-05-02T12:00:00+01:00 BRAZIL: The São Paulo state government has drawn up a Strategic Railway Plan which aims to revitalise much of the network of underused or moribund lines that have been left to decay in many parts of the state The plan has been developed by the Logistics & Transport Department which has set up a working party to progress the proposals A bill setting out details has been presented to the state legislative assembly Key to the plan is the ability to offer concessions to the private sector for operation of railway infrastructure and services In many respects this mirrors recent federal legislation which aims to promote construction of new lines or revival of abandoned routes In São Paulo the North American short line model is seen as a viable option for many routes Around 2 500 km of São Paulo state’s 5 700 km of railway is either abandoned or barely used leaving what State Secretary of Logistics & Transport João Octaviano Machado Neto describes as ‘urban scars’ in cities across the state Revival of these routes is expected to reduce transport costs and improve industrial and agricultural competitiveness helping to balance the freight transport matrix through the elimination of logistical bottlenecks ― rail is now increasingly seen as a sustainable alternative to the congested road network An integral part of the Strategic Plan is the state’s Passenger Transport & Cargo Logistics Action Plan for the Macrometropolis of São Paulo This envisages R$70bn of private sector investment R$54∙2bn of which would be destined for rail networks in the metropolitan regions of São Paulo Together these networks handle around 70% of rail freight movements in the state Five major projects for completion by 2040 are included in the Action Plan: São Paulo State Governor Rodrigo Garcia signed agreements on April 18 with the municipalities of Campinas Várzea Paulista and Vinhedo providing legal financial and technical guarantees for the first stage of the inter-city project BRAZIL: A Chinese-backed consortium has won the bidding auction to introduce inter-city passenger services linking São Paulo with Campinas BRAZIL: Alstom has delivered the first Series 8900 EMU to São Paulo commuter rail concessionaire ViaMobilidade BRAZIL: Outgoing state governor of São Paulo Rodrigo Garcia has signed a technical agreement with the federal Ministry of Infrastructure that marks another milestone in the long process to reinstate inter-city trains between São Paulo and Campinas The agreement inked on November 4 paves the way .. Site powered by Webvision Cloud Nossos serviços estão apresentando instabilidade no momento Algumas informações podem não estar disponíveis 2024 06h01 PM | Last Updated: February 24 The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the Intermunicipal Consortium of the Great ABC Area signed a protocol of intentions aiming at the technical cooperation in fields of mutual interest The protocol was signed during the ceremony for the release of the 2022 Census: Characteristics of Housing Units – Results of the Universe, held at Clara Nunes Theater and the president of the Intermunicipal Consortium for the Great ABC Area and mayor of Diadema The Consortium is a public association formed by the municipalities of Santo André whose objectives are regional governance and the construction of policies aimed at regional development and technical innovation The protocol for technical cooperation considers that both institutions will work together and in cooperation to “to discuss issues related to research See the Protocol of Intentions 001/2024 (in Portuguese) © 2018 IBGE - Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística Nós utilizamos cookies para melhorar sua experiência de navegação no portal. 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Metrics details Grassland ecosystems are evolutionarily linked to disturbances such as grazing and fire These disturbances define grassland plant communities and habitat heterogeneity We evaluated the influence of fire disturbance on plant and bird communities and on habitat structure by sampling grassland fragments with different time elapsed since the last fire event Habitat structure was sampled using plant life forms and abiotic variables and birds were sampled through point counts We recorded 862 bird individuals from 70 species Intermediately-burnt sites harbor higher habitat heterogeneity and plant species richness in comparison with recently or long-burnt sites Bird abundance and taxonomic diversity decreased linearly as time since fire increased time since fire influenced the relative distribution of plant life forms and bird food guilds Our results indicate that fire management should be included in the framework for conservation and sustainable use of grasslands because it promotes habitat heterogeneity and diversity To maintain habitat heterogeneity and the related habitat-specific bird species and functional groups conservation efforts should maintain grassland patches under different management intensities and frequencies on a landscape level studies focused on determining the periodicity with which fire management should be used are still lacking there is a gap of information about how fire disturbance can influence bird community patterns plant communities) and bird community descriptors in Highland Grasslands from South Brazil Based on the premises that (i) fire disturbance promotes habitat heterogeneity in grasslands by breaking the species dominance and (ii) habitat heterogeneity is a key driver for bird community patterns sites with longer time since fire will present: (1) higher vegetation height (4) lower bird taxonomic and functional diversity and (5) different bird food guild composition we tested the direct influence of habitat structure on bird taxonomic and functional community patterns We sampled birds during the peak of breeding season, between December 2017 and February 2018, using point counts of 10 min and 80 m radius81 Point counts were carried out under appropriate weather conditions and by the same observer in the mornings (sunrise until 10:00 a.m.) The number of points was proportional to the size of the grassland fragment at each site and points were allocated at least 300 m apart They were allocated systematically in sampling sites the sampling effort in these different habitats was proportionate to their spatial representativeness in each site and distributed to cover as much of the grassland-covered area as possible They were always located in open areas at least 150 m from the edges of other vegetation types (e.g. forests) or from fences and isolated trees we used only the maximum number of individuals recorded in the two sampling events of each point We used bird community mean values for each site (A-G) in all analyses that follow we counted all individuals of Eryngium and shrubs in 10 m buffers around each quadrat so that the sampling method encompassed larger specimens and covered a larger portion of the habitat used by birds sampled in point counts Matrix W of seven sites described by bird species abundance; matrix E of seven sites described by habitat descriptors; matrix B of bird species separated in food guilds; seven sites described by the time since the last fire event (TSF) Matrix T with community-weighted mean trait values (C) Derived variables and summarized analyses TSF as independent variable for Linear Mixed-Effect Models (LME) with each dependent variable derived from data matrices The first ordination axis of Matrix E (Habitat structure (PCA) in bold) was used as independent variable in separate models with bird variables derived from matrices W and T as dependent variables matrix E was used in Canonical Correspondence Analyses (CCA) with matrices W and T This matrix was used as a descriptor of bird community functional structure the heterogeneity index can be interpreted similarly to the species diversity index theoretically ranging from zero (complete dominance of one life form) to one (relative contribution of life forms evenly distributed) We chose to compare between concurrent models because we wanted to evaluate if plant and bird community descriptors response to time since fire was either linear or peaked (i.e. with highest values in intermediate disturbance frequencies The CCA was performed with matrices W and T using matrix E to constrain the ordinations we reduced the original matrix E by removing all variables that showed significant collinearity The remaining variables were mean vegetation height and abundance of forbs We tested the statistical significance of the CCA models using Analysis of Variance with permutations as well as species common names and IUCN threatened species categories) Relationship between time since fire and bird community descriptors Time since fire as a predictor of (A) taxonomic diversity (C) species composition and overall community structure (first ordination axis of Matrix W) (D) functional composition (described food guilds; Matrix T) E represent community-weighted mean trait values extracted from Matrix T Data points represent mean values derived from 83 bird point-counts Time since fire log-transformed in the horizontal axis Scatterplot of a Constrained Correspondence Analyses of bird food guilds The effect of habitat variables (blue arrows; mean vegetation height and abundance of forbs Respective time since fire (months) of each site: (A) (5) our results indicated that this species was related to recently-burnt areas with shorter vegetation These findings reinforce that the inclusion of management (i.e. prescribed disturbances) in grassland conservation policies and practices is paramount since threatened and near-threatened bird species seem to depend on specific habitat configurations that are absent from management-excluded areas and Long-tailed Reed Finch Donacospiza albifrons although the last species also includes insects in its diet) were more abundant in these sites as well which could also be related to higher seed availability indicating that a mosaic of areas under different times since fire which results in a mosaic of diverse grassland habitat structures seems like the optimal conservation strategy This conclusion reinforces the idea that the conservation of grassland plant and bird communities must include oriented management we emphasize that the conclusions and (especially) management suggestions drawn from our results should be taken with caution given our relatively small number of spatial replicates We are confident that the general patterns we presented can be extrapolated to the South Brazilian Highland Grasslands as a unit but similar studies distributed across the different grassland systems in the region are needed to build more general and widely applicable fire management policies periodic prescribed burning has great potential to be used as a tool in the management of natural grassland areas since it maintains not only the structure and scenic beauty of the grassland landscape but also the diversity of both plants and birds We emphasize the importance of habitat heterogeneity the habitat complexity that results from patches under different fire frequencies as well as forests when considering the landscape-level mosaic for the long-term conservation of grasslands in Southern Brazil long-term studies are fundamental to determine the periodicity with which fire management should be used for conservation and the effect of different intensities of grazing combined with fire should be considered in future studies to aggregate financial sustainability to biodiversity conservation Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Grassland Ecosystems (World Resources Institute Brazil’s neglected biome: The south Brazilian Campos Biodiversity of palaearctic grasslands: A synthesis Grasses and Grassland Ecology (Oxford University Press Determinants of avian species richness at different spatial scales Vascular plant species richness and distribution in the Río de la Plata grasslands Farmland biodiversity: Is habitat heterogeneity the key? Grassland bird response to vegetation structural heterogeneity and clearing of invasive bramble Spatial heterogeneity increases diversity and stability in grassland bird communities Cumulative effects of fire on a tussock pampa grassland Pillar, V. D. P. & Quadros, F. Grassland-forest boundaries in Southern Brazil. In Conference on Recent Shifts in Vegetation Boundaries of Deciduous Forests, Especially Due to General Global Warming 301–316 (Birkhäuser Basel, 1999). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8722-9_17 Fine-scale post-fire dynamics in southern Brazilian subtropical grassland Vegetation recovery after fire in mountain grasslands of Argentina Effect of grazing on community structure and productivity of a Uruguayan grassland López‐Mársico, L., Lezama, F. & Altesor, A. Heterogeneity decreases as time since fire increases in a South American grassland. Appl. Veg. Sci. avsc.12521 (2020). doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/avsc.12521 The Ecological Concept of Disturbance and Its Expression at Various Hierarchical Levels Plant strategies and vegetation processes (Plant Strateg Large herbivore foraging and ecological hierarchies Spatial components of plant-herbivore interactions in pastoral Fire as a global ‘herbivore’: The ecology and evolution of flammable ecosystems diversity and conservation of the grassy biomes topography and year-to-year climatic variation on species composition in tallgrass prairie Adaptive strategies in burned subtropical grassland in southern Brazil Dinâmica vegetacional em pastagem natural submetida a tratamentos de queima e pastejo Temporal trends in species composition and plant traits in natural grasslands of Uruguay A literature review of insect responses to fire compared to other conservation managements of open habitat Should heterogeneity be the basis for conservation Grassland bird response to fire and grazing Ecological mechanisms underlying arthropod species diversity in grasslands Spider trait assembly patterns and resilience under fire-induced vegetation change in south Brazilian grasslands Generalized fire response strategies in plants and animals Germinable soil seed banks in a tropical savanna: Seasonal dynamics and effects of fire Delayed emergence and post-fire recruitment success: Effects of seasonal germination Canadell, J. & Zedler, P. H. Underground structures of woody plants in mediterranean ecosystems of Australia, California, and Chile. In 177–210 (Springer, New York, NY, 1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2490-7_8 Does disturbance affect bud bank size and belowground structures diversity in Brazilian subtropical grasslands? Fire intensity and severity in Brazilian campos grasslands Vegetation dynamics on mosaics of Campos and Araucaria forest between 1974 and 1999 in Southern Brazil Variation of grazing-induced vegetation changes across a large-scale productivity gradient Long-term ecological research in southern Brazil grasslands: Effects of grazing exclusion and deferred grazing on plant and arthropod communities Shrub invasions of north american semiarid grasslands Effect of shrub encroachment on vegetation communities in Brazilian forest-grassland mosaics Preventing traditional management can cause grassland loss within 30 years in southern Brazil Combining plant and animal traits to assess community functional responses to disturbance but all do the same: Contrasting effects of flood disturbance on ground beetle functional and species diversity Plant life-history attributes: Their Relationship to disturbance response in herbaceous vegetation Habitat structure influences the diversity richness and composition of bird assemblages in successional atlantic rain forests The diversity–disturbance relationship: Is it generally strong and peaked? Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs Competitive exclusion in herbaceous vegetation The intermediate disturbance hypothesis should be abandoned A Generalized model of the effects of grazing by large herbivores on grassland community structure Grazing effects on rangeland diversity: A synthesis of contemporary models Ecological heterogeneity in the effects of grazing and fire on grassland diversity Fire and grazing in a mesic tallgrass prairie: Impacts on plant species and functional traits Interactive effects of fire and grazing on structure and diversity of Mediterranean grasslands Fire frequency and tree canopy structure influence plant species diversity in a forest-grassland ecotone Fire frequency and community heterogeneity in tallgrass prairie vegetation Experimental analysis of intermediate disturbance and initial floristic composition: Decoupling cause and effect disturbance and fire on species composition and diversity in grassland communities Seasonal bird assemblages in a Mediterranean patchy wetland: Corroborating the intermediate disturbance hypothesis Effects of Conservation Reserve Program field age on avian relative abundance Tallgrass prairie management and bird nest success along roadsides The influence of fire on the assemblage structure of foraging birds in grasslands of the Serra da Canastra National Park Fire regime effects on annual grass seeds as food for threatened grass-finch Estado atual do conhecimento e conservação da avifauna dos campos de cima da serra do sul do Brasil Breeding biology of the Tropeiro seedeater (Sporophila beltoni) Breeding biology of the Lesser grass-finch (Emberizoides ypiranganus) in southern Brazilian upland grasslands Fire regimes and avian responses in the central tallgrass prairie Effects of patch-burn management on dickcissel nest success in a tallgrass prairie Effects of prescribed burning and grazing on nesting and reproductive success of three grassland passerine species in tallgrass prairie Highland grasslands at the southern tip of the Atlantic forest biome: Management options and conservation challenges Extinção dos Campos Sulinos em unidades de conservação: um fenômeno natural ou um problema ético? Conservation in Brazil needs to include non-forest ecosystems Ecology and conservation of grassland birds in southeastern South America: a review Classification of South Brazilian grasslands: Implications for conservation Vegetação campestre do sul do Brasil: dinâmica de espécies à exclusão do gado Plant functional classifications: From general groups to specific groups based on response to disturbance Functional groups for response to disturbance in mediterranean old fields Community structure in montane grasslands of central Argentina in relation to land use Aves do Rio Grande do Sul: distribuição e biologia Biodiversidade dos campos de Cima da Serra Collinearity: A review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance Hebbali, A. olsrr: Tools for Building OLS Regression Models. R package version 0.5.3. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=olsrr (2020) Variance inflation factor: As a condition for the inclusion of suppressor variable(s) in regression analysis Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (Lynx Edicions Discriminating trait-convergence and trait-divergence assembly patterns in ecological community gradients Extending Gower’s general coefficient of similarity to ordinal characters R Core Team. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/ (2020) Mixed effects Models and Extensions in Ecology with R (Springer Pinheiro, J., Bates, D., DebRoy, & S., Sarkar, D. nlme: Linear and Nonlinear Mixed Effects Models. R package version 3.1-149. https://CRAN.Rproject.org/package=nlme (2020) Which results of the standard test for community-weighted mean approach are too optimistic? Zeleny, D. Bias in Community-Weighted Mean Analysis Relating Species Attributes to Sample Attributes: Justification and Remedy. bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 2016). https://doi.org/10.1101/046946 New robust weighted averaging- and model-based methods for assessing trait–environment relationships Structural bias in aggregated species-level variables driven by repeated species co-occurrences: A pervasive problem in community and assemblage data Functions to support extension education program evaluation Canonical correspondence analysis: A new eigenvector technique for multivariate direct gradient analysis IUCN 2020. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2020-2 https://www.iucnredlist.org Interpreting the Yellowstone fires of 1988 Lightning fires in a Brazilian Savanna national park: Rethinking management strategies Livestock disturbance in Brazilian grasslands influences avian species diversity via turnover Range extension of Anthus nattereri Sclater Registros notáveis de aves para o sul do estado de Minas Gerais Frequent use of burned grasslands by the vulnerable Saffron-Cowled Blackbird Xanthopsar flavus: Implications for the conservation of the species Natural history and conservation of the endangered saffron-cowled blackbird Xanthopsar flavus in Argentina Fire and fire exclusion effects on the growth and survival of two savanna grasses and nest placement of the Brazilian endemic Black-bellied seedeater (Sporophila melanogaster) Breeding biology of the Tawny-bellied seedeater (Sporophila hypoxantha) in southern Brazilian upland grasslands Bird-habitat associations in coastal rangelands of southern Brazil Toward a trophic theory of species diversity Playing chutes and ladders: heterogeneity and the relative roles of bottom-up and top-down forces in natural communities QGIS Development Team. QGIS Geographic Information System. Open Source Geospatial Foundation Project. http://qgis.osgeo.org (2020) Download references We are thank the managers of the protected areas and the farm owners that allowed the study to be carried out CNPq processes 402083/2016-4 and 309438/2016-0 to CSF Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução da Biodiversidade Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul Mariana Beal-Neves & Pedro Maria Abreu Ferreira Eduardo Chiarani & Carla Suertegaray Fontana Conceptualization and design of the experiment E.C.; Funding acquisition and Project administration C.S.F.; Methodology (life-form classification) P.M.A.F.; Writing—review & editing: All authors The authors declare no competing interests Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-76758-z Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science The World Heritage Centre is at the forefront of the international community’s efforts to protect and preserve World Heritage partnerships for conservation Ensuring that World Heritage sites sustain their outstanding universal value is an increasingly challenging mission in today’s complex world where sites are vulnerable to the effects of uncontrolled urban development Our Partners Donate Take advantage of the search to browse through the World Heritage Centre information This natural-cultural landscape encompasses the historic centre of Paraty one of Brazil's best-preserved coastal towns four Brazilian Atlantic Forest protected natural areas one of the world’s five key biodiversity hotspots as well as part of the Serra da Bocaina mountain range and the Atlantic coastal region Serra do Mar and Ilha Grande Bay is home to an impressive diversity of animal species the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) and several primate species including the Southern Muriqui (Brachyteles arachnoides) Paraty was the end-point of the Caminho do Ouro (Gold Route) Its port also served as an entry point for tools and African slaves A defence system was built to protect the wealth of the port and the town The historic centre of Paraty has retained its 18th century plan and much of its colonial architecture dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries Ce paysage naturel-culturel englobe le centre historique de Paraty l'une des villes côtières les mieux préservées du Brésil quatre zones naturelles protégées de la forêt atlantique brésilienne l'un des cinq points chauds du monde pour la biodiversité ainsi qu'une partie de la chaîne de montagnes Serra da Bocaina et la région côtière atlantique Serra do Mar et la baie d'Ilha Grande abritent une diversité impressionnante d'espèces animales le pécari à lèvres blanches (Tayassu pecari) et plusieurs espèces de primates dont l’atèle arachnoïde (Brachyteles arachnoides) Paraty était le point final du Caminho do Ouro (Route de l'Or) le long duquel l'or était expédié vers l'Europe Son port servait également de point d'entrée pour les outils et les esclaves africains Un système de défense a été construit pour protéger la richesse du port et de la ville Le centre historique de Paraty a conservé son plan du XVIIIe siècle et une grande partie de son architecture coloniale datant du XVIIIe et du début du XIXe siècle Paraty and Ilha Grande - Culture and Biodiversity is a serial property comprising six component parts including four protected areas: Serra da Bocaina National Park plus the Paraty Historic Centre and the Morro da Vila Velha The mixed serial property comprises 150,392 ha It is located in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and nestled in the majestic Serra do Mar which dominates the landscape of the region due to its rugged relief reaching over 2,000 m altitude The property and its buffer zone present a natural amphitheatre of Atlantic Rainforest dropping down to Ilha Grande Bay Praia do Sul Biological Reserve and Ilha Grande State Park which cover most of the largest island within the Bay also contain cultural assets that testify to the occupation of the area by indigenous inhabitants and by European settlers and enslaved Africans The main cultural components are the historic centre of Paraty one of the best preserved colonial coastal towns in Brazil; Morro da Vila Velha where the archaeological remains of Defensor Perpétuo Fort are found; a portion of the Caminho do Ouro (Gold Route) located within the boundaries of Serra da Bocaina National Park; and several archaeological sites that testify to the long occupation of the region by indigenous populations The property also houses traditional Quilombola Guarani and Caiçara communities that maintain the ways of life and the production systems of their ancestors whose tangible and intangible elements contribute to the cultural system The forest formations exhibit four distinct classifications according to altitude This property represents the greatest concentration of endemism for vascular plants within the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot and also features 57% of the total of endemic bird species of this hotspot The property’s systems of fluvial sedimentation support stands of mangrove and restinga which are found on the coastal plains and function as important ecosystems for the transition between terrestrial and marine environments reefs and islands of the property shelter hundreds of mammals many endemic to the Atlantic Rainforest and threatened with extinction a coastal plain abundant in food and natural shelter surrounded by the sea and mountains covered by forests –have supported its occupation by indigenous populations since prehistoric times Europeans arrived in the region in the 16th century and chose this location because it was a safe refuge for ships and was one of the main points of entry into the interior of the continent The discovery of gold at Minas Gerais resulted in the consolidation of the Gold Route to link this mining region with the town of Paraty Paraty was also the entrance point for enslaved Africans A defence system was designed and constructed to protect the rich port and town The historic centre of Paraty has preserved its 18th century urban layout and much of the colonial architecture of the 18th and early 19th centuries The relationship between the town and its spectacular natural setting has also been preserved Criterion (v): The Cultural Landscape of Paraty is an outstanding testimony of human interaction with the environment human groups have lived in interaction with the landscape and have exploited the natural land and water resources that characterize the region and frame the built territory producing settlements and giving cultural significance to natural features evolving but keeping the most important natural elements The Tupi-Guarani language communities have a close relationship with the Atlantic Forest which implies a high level of management and deep knowledge and mastery of the different ecosystems and Forest formations The traditional communities of Paraty based their cultures on activities related to the use of the land and the sea; traditional fishing activity is still intense especially in the Caiçara communities and around the historic centre of Paraty the descendants of the Africans enslaved during the Colonial period have created their own cultural patterns in the context of the Atlantic Forest’s landscape Global climate change and the recurrence and severity of natural disasters make Paraty cultural landscape an area of high vulnerability Criterion (x): The property Paraty and Ilha Grande – Culture and Biodiversity is located in the Atlantic Forest hotspot one of five leading global biodiversity hotspots and the property is known for its high richness in endemic species The remarkably high biodiversity of this area is due to a unique diversity of landscapes with a set of high mountains and strong altitudinal variation and ecosystems that occupy areas from sea level to about 2,000 metres in elevation The property is noteworthy for the occurrence of at least 11 Key Biodiversity Areas This section of the Atlantic Forest represents the greatest richness of endemism for vascular plants within the hotspot with some 36 species of rare plants Among the rare plants of the site are species of herbaceous plants which occupy specific habitats of forest environments and sandbanks birds represent 60% of the endangered species of vertebrate fauna identified for the property Paraty and Ilha Grande -  Culture and Biodiversity is home to 45% of all the Atlantic Forest’s avifauna including 57% of the total of endemic bird species for the hotspot The property boasts impressive species richness across almost all taxa: 125 species of anurans (frogs and toads) have been recorded representing 34% of the species known from the Atlantic Forest and some 27 species of reptile are known from the site 150 species of mammals are found within the property including several globally significant primates such as the Southern Muriqui which is considered a flagship species for the site The larger components of the property are also important for large range species such as jaguar The property also supports a similarly high diversity of marine biodiversity and endemism With regard to the cultural elements of the mixed serial property the historic centre of Paraty and the Morro da Vila Velha constitute the main components; their boundaries include the necessary attributes to convey their contribution to the Outstanding Universal Value of the property and they are adequately protected such as the archaeological site of Paraty-Mirim the portion of the Gold Route located in Serra da Bocaina National Park archaeological sites testifying to different stages of occupation of the region are included within the boundaries of the four primarily natural components The cultural attributes necessary to convey the Outstanding Universal Value of the property are included and are adequately protected the property coincides with areas of high forest cover within the formerly extensive Atlantic Forest with most of the site included in protected areas of the National System of Nature Protected Areas (SNUC) contributing to the maintenance of the environmental integrity of the landscape The integrity of this landscape is evidenced by the presence of species that require large Further study on the estimated population of jaguars within the inscribed area as well as information on their movements would provide confirmation of the ecological integrity of the property as the bay itself is included within the buffer zone it is critical that the strategies and recommendations made under the “Integrated Management Project of the Ecosystem of the Ilha Grande Bay” are effectively implemented to adequately protect the ecosystem health of Ilha Grande Bay itself The combined component areas and their overall size including the buffer zone are adequate to ensure integrity but the connectivity between them must be preserved to maintain ecological functionality across the overall size Any loss of connectivity and / or reduction of functional size of any part of the property would be damaging to its integrity The management of the buffer zone is hence critical to the overall health of the property’s values in the overlap between the Serra do Mar State Park in Sao Paulo State and the Bocaina National Park is the only location on the Atlantic Coast where the full altitudinal gradient between the coastline and the top of the mountain range is totally included within protected areas Ilha Grande Bay demonstrates one of the highest levels of connectivity between the forest ecosystems of the Atlantic Forest and coastal shore ecosystems contributing to the representation and preservation of its natural attributes The historic centre of Paraty and the Morro da Vila Velha preserve a high degree of authenticity The historic centre of Paraty has kept its original layout and exhibits a high degree of authenticity of form Although the town has experienced expansion over time the authenticity of its setting can also be considered acceptable especially in relation to the sea and the surrounding mountainous landscape The authenticity of functions is also acceptable since it continues to be the ‘living centre’ for local communities although some buildings currently have tourism-related uses such as the Defensor Perpétuo Fort and the portion of the Gold Route also have a high degree of authenticity of form substance and setting; the current use of the fort as a museum is logical since its original function has long since disappeared The authenticity of the traditional communities’ settlements is quite remarkable Caiçara and Quilombola groups maintain their traditional practices and ways of life Tourism could have an impact that would require appropriate control through protection and management mechanisms The cultural components of the mixed property are protected by a set of legal instruments from the three levels of government The first legal protection for the historic centre of Paraty was State Law-Decree 1.450 (1945) which designated Paraty a Historic Monument of the State of Rio de Janeiro The decree placed the traditional urban and architectonic ensemble of Paraty under the supervision of the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) a large number of legal instruments has strengthened the protection of the historic centre as well as other cultural elements within the serial property The state of conservation of the historic centre of Paraty and other cultural elements is good and active conservation measures are carried out by or under the supervision of IPHAN all of the components of the serial property are protected by municipal Serra da Bocaina National Park is managed by ICMBio the federal agency of the Brazilian Ministry of Environment for protected areas Praia do Sul Biological Reserve and Environmental Protected Area of Cairuçu are managed by the Rio de Janeiro Sate Environment Institute (INEA) as well as IPHAN and the Ministry of Citizenship provide adequate long term institutional protection and management to the property’s components and buffer zone All protected areas have their own annual budget to ensure the implementation of research Each of the components of the serial property has its own management plan; the primary organization responsible for the conservation and management of the cultural components of the series is IPHAN vision and management structure proposed; different steps to complete the plan have been undertaken together with the ‘Management Plan and Responsibilities Matrix’ Tourism and surrounding development pressures stem from the property’s location between the two major cities of São Paolo and Rio de Janeiro Although public use is included amongst the envisaged sectorial plans a specific tourism strategy oriented to conserving the attributes that convey the Outstanding Universal Value authenticity and integrity of the property and taking into account the areas of ecological and cultural sensitivities Risk preparedness management in particular should also be incorporated The context of the property is important to understand and manage given the presence of nuclear energy facilities in one portion of the buffer zone as well as existing impacts from the oil industry and more are very serious and could compromise much of the aesthetic and ecological value of the coastal sections of the proposed site Effective planning and response mechanisms are therefore critical to have in place Although traditional communities have participated in the elaboration of the nomination and the management processes their role must be strengthened in order to ensure that inscription of the property on the World Heritage List will be a source of sustainable development within the framework of preserving their traditional ways of life and their relationships with the natural environment Here at PUCRS you can take the course you want Courses that will make a difference in your development There are 20 program options in the best graduate courses in the country Renowned teachers and our quality guarantee Courses with different themes and prices for senior citizens Commitment to scientific and technological advancement.   Seeking solutions to the problems of our society.  Contributing to the training of specialists and researchers.   Be one of our researchers and contribute to scientific advancement We value ethics and integrity in our work.   Follow our guidelines for research and laboratory safety Scientific journals available exclusively in electronic media Discover an innovative and entrepreneurial university Discover the connected and global innovation ecosystem Discover the possibilities of an entrepreneurial education We facilitate your search for health and longevity Discover the school with the best medicine course in the country Ensuring an improvement in quality of life is our purpose Our biggest concern is people's health and lives Discover what PUCRS can do for you.    Prioritizing your development and well-being.   Tailored services for whatever your organization needs Cultural and well-being programming.   Contributing to the development of society.   Valuing your learning and talent development.   Hold your event in the most complete complex in the south of the country.   Services and environments that can make your day-to-day life easier Our impactful actions for the community and education Raising funds to finance projects and strategic actions We continue to work alongside the people of Rio Grande do Sul in rebuilding the State We are a community university focused on society A new University for a new society.   We are the best private university in the country and one of the best in the world Learn about research projects and our researchers information and follow everything that is happening at the University learn about the Fluir program and have access to the main systems Seven mission presidents and their wives have been called by the First Presidency to begin their service about July 1 California Carlsbad Mission; Cascade 3rd Ward Orem Utah Cascade Stake; ward Young Single Adult adviser; former stake president and counselor high councilor and missionary in the Bolivia Mission Sister Brady is a former ward Relief Society humanitarian aid coordinator counselor in ward Relief Society and Primary presidencies and a Primary teacher Murray Utah South Stake; gospel doctrine teacher; former stake president and counselor ward Young Men president and missionary in the Korea Mission Sister Burton is a former ward Primary president counselor in ward Relief Society and Young Women presidencies Sunday School teacher and stake missionary to Morris Ashton and Marjorie Castleton Kjar Curitiba Brazil Taruma Stake; Area Seventy; former stake president elders quorum president and missionary in the Brazil Sao Paulo South Mission to Enos de Castro Deus and Mathilde Felber A counselor in the ward Relief Society presidency Sister Castro is a former stake and ward Primary president counselor in a stake Young Women presidency stake family history center director and ward Relief Society president Brazil Londrina Mission; Rio Grande da Serra Ward Ribeirao Pires Brazil Stake; counselor in the Brazil Sao Paulo South Mission presidency; former bishop elders quorum president and missionary in the Portugal Lisbon Mission to Manoel de Jesus and Rachel Lombardi Leal A counselor in the stake Primary presidency Sister Leal is a former stake and ward Young Women president counselor in a stake Relief Society presidency and gospel doctrine teacher to Preciliano and Alzira do Carmo Pizzirani Provo Utah Edgemont Stake; high priests group leader and temple ordinance worker; former counselor in a stake presidency stake mission president and missionary in the Canada Toronto Mission A ward Primary pianist and activity day leader Sister Livingstone is a former stake Young Women president and counselor Young Women adviser and Church service missionary at the Provo Missionary Training Center Canada Toronto West Mission; Monument Park 14th Ward Salt Lake Monument Park Stake; stake Young Men president; former bishop ward Young Men president and missionary in the Italy Rome Mission to Ted Duane and Bonne Kay Hartvigsen Simmons Sister Simmons is a former counselor in stake Young Women and Primary presidencies counselor in a ward Primary presidency and Primary teacher Italy Catania Mission; Pleasant View 6th Ward Provo Utah Sharon East Stake; former teacher in Primary Faculty member at Brigham Young University Sister Toronto is a former gospel doctrine teacher to Joseph Andreas and Maida Ingram Gillett.