Impact Narrative: Benthic Habitat Maps is the Government's official Marine Spatial Planning tool (Brasil)

The Impact Narrative documents proxy evidence of long-term impact. of the Benthic Habitat Map & Classification System applied to the entire South Brasilian Shelf (SBS). The Benthic Habitat Map has been operationalised via the SeaSketch.org platform, allowing broad capacity-building across Ministerial teams in Brasil over the 2023-2026 period. National funding has directly extended the habitat monitoring and mapping work, building upon the EU-BR collaboration under the MISSION ATLANTIC Project (2020-2026), and significantly broadening the scale of the impact by involving wider brasilian initiatives, stakeholders and Ministeries. Early proxy evidence of systematic reach, is citation of the peer-review work by UNESCO (2025) and Ireland Policy Documents (2024), as well as statement by Gilberto Sales, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, that the “Benthic Habitat Map is considered the official map to be used for licensing purposes (oil and gas, offshore wind energy)” Global Environment Facility (GEF) research grant will demonstrate the "fit-for-purpose" state of the habitat mapping and classification protocols in 2026-2029, by extending them beyond Brasil, to Uruguay and Argentina, to attempt management of transboundary Large Marine Ecosystems (LME).