The Amazon basin is one of the most biologically diverse places on earth. However, agricultural expansion and infrastructure development have led to widespread deforestation that threatens the survival of many taxa. Conservation strategies to contest these threats include protected areas and environmental legislation. Nevertheless, the basic biology of many taxa is largely unknown, which poses an immense challenge when devising effective strategies to safeguard such species in the long-term. This is particularly true for primates.

Recent decades have seen a rapid movement towards decentralising forest rights and tenure to local communities and indigenous groups in both developing and developed nations. Attribution of local and community rights to forests appears to be gathering increasing momentum in many tropical developing countries. Greater local control of forest resources is a response to the failure of government agencies to exercise adequate stewardship over forests and to ensure that the values of all stakeholders are adequately protected.

Given incontrovertible evidence that humans are the most powerful agents of environmental change on the planet, research has begun to acknowledge and integrate human presence and activity into updated descriptions of the world’s biomes as “anthromes”. Thus far, a classification system for anthromes is limited to the terrestrial biosphere. Here, I present a case for the consideration and validity of coastal anthromes. Every coastal environment on Earth is subject to direct and indirect human modification and disturbance.