Extending and repeating assessments is a key tool to reveal barriers to effective management of protected areas

Here we assessed protected area (PA) management effectiveness while also checking for potential barriers. We addressed 21 PAs of the State of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. Out of these, we assessed 10 PAs under state level administration that lacked thus far a standardized assessment. For PAs under federal administration, we got assessment data from the government itself. We contrasted the PAs regarding the level of administration and collected a list of aspects that could result in differences in management effectiveness between PAs. We checked the relationship between PA aspects and mean effectiveness with linear models. The same aspects were also related to PA management elements, namely context, planning, inputs, processes, and outputs, using redundancy analysis. Management effectiveness and scores of management elements were found to be lower for PAs either with unresolved land tenure, lacking management plans, being under many pressures and threats, or being under state level administration. Our results call for extended assessments to reach the reality of the Brazilian PA network with different administration levels. Assessments must be carried out regularly since it is the only way to effectively flag a barrier, clear it, then find the next one to be tackled.

46 Introduction 94 the domain under such status, the State of Santa Catarina (southern Brazil) has a high 95 conservation potential with ~30% of native vegetation cover remaining, even though 96 vegetation cover varies across the State [21]. The State has 99 PAs in several protection 97 categories are under federal level (16 PAs), state level (10), municipality level (18), and 98 private (56) administration (updated from [22]). Because of such differences across the PA 99 network, management effectiveness is expected to differ, providing grounds for checking 100 which aspects lead to better outputs. 101 102 Assessment of management effectiveness 103 For the assessment of effectiveness, we selected 11 federal and 10 state level PAs out 104 of the entire PA network of Santa Catarina. We assessed management effectiveness using 105 RAPPAM [9] because it allows a standardized comparison between different contexts [10] 106 and emphasizes effectiveness alongside pressures and threats. Pressures are actions that have 107 negatively affected PAs in the five years before the assessment. In turn, threats that are 108 persisting negative actions in the past that are likely to go on over the following five years.
109 Effectiveness assesses whether the management is leading the PA towards its aims and 110 considers the elements of context, planning, input, process, and outputs (outcomes are less 111 related to management and were not assessed 143 Then we reduced the full model in a step-by-step process using the highest adjusted R² as the 144 stopping criterion. We checked the overall predictor-response relationship of RDA and of 145 each of the remaining predictors using permutation tests (9999 iterations). Finally, we also 146 carried these analyses for the subset of State level PAs.

147
We computed all analyses in R [24] using "vegan", "MASS" and "car" packages.  Regarding the relationship between PA aspects and effectiveness, protection category 210 was removed from the redundancy analysis (RDA) because of multicollinearity. After step-211 by-step reduction, the final RDA explained ~50% of the variation in the elements of 212 management (Fig 3).

227
For the state level data and after both checking for multicollinearity and model 228 simplification, the number of employees per km² was the aspect most strongly related to 229 changes to the effectiveness index, being followed by management plan availability (Fig 3).

269
Resolving land tenure issues has already been identified as a priority [19], but see also 270 [10]. We reinforce tenure resolution is crucial for three reasons. First because the creation of 271 PAs without compensation establishes a conflict between the right to property and the right to 272 a balanced environment in the Brazilian constitution. Second, activities incompatible with 273 conservation aims can proceed until tenure is granted, pressing the PA and making 274 management actions more difficult [29]. Third, tenure issues can trigger other conflicts [30] 275 because of the large involved figures, administrative difficulties, and fragility of land tenure 276 structure [31]. However, these barriers should neither inhibit creation of new PAs, be an 277 excuse for the use of less restrictive categories, nor restrict new PAs to public land to avoid 278 acquisition [32].

279
The relationship found between pressures and threats with context is worrisome. 281 more pressures and threats. Although hunting and deforestation are top threats to PAs 282 globally [5,17], deforestation was irrelevant here. Hunting, conversely, was identified as 283 critical and is of concern because it has direct (population reduction or extinctions, [33]) and 284 indirect effects on biodiversity (changes on either community structure and ecosystem 285 functioning, [34]; animal behavior, [35]; or plant dispersal and regeneration, [36]). Combating 286 hunting is challenging because of its stealth aspect and because counteracting actions often 287 need to go beyond PA limits. Another critical threat we found were invasive alien species, 288 which reduce diversity and can alter the structure and the functioning of ecosystems (e.g. 289 [37]). Costs of controlling invasive species are among the main management obstacles for 290 PAs [38]. Infrastructure is also among the most significant pressures with direct impacts on 291 PAs. Roads lead to roadkills [39], ease deforestation [40] and dispersal of invasive alien 292 species. Reducing infrastructure impacts requires integration of environmental policies and 293 improvement of environmental impact assessments and mitigation [41]. Such PAs require 294 both more resources, especially employees [18], and meaningful management plans.
295 However, the current situation is worsening, following pressure to simplify the assessments

298
Management plan development was one of the main aspects associated with 299 differences in effectiveness, pointing out they are important and likely also meaningful for 300 management [15]. Management plans precede execution of actions and define guidelines for 301 optimization of resources. Although such precedence is both obvious and plan development 302 considered urgent under current legislation, many PAs still lack such plans, thus contributing 303 to poor management effectiveness. Moreover, we found little relevance of staff and fund 305 values of the input element, all these aspects were unrelated with effectiveness. We also 306 expected co-management to bring benefits by improving staff size [13] and visitation to 307 increase with management effectiveness [16], but such relationships were rejected, indicating 308 that changing how co-management or visitation occurs is necessary to result in gains for PAs 309 [45]. Likewise, having an instituted board seems insufficient to ensure proper representation 310 and governance and, thus, be ineffective on management effectiveness (but see e.g. [12]