Fuleco™ revisited: Football, conservation and lessons learned from the 2014 FIFA World Cup

In 2014, Brazil hosted the FIFA World Cup (FWC), whose mascot was the Brazilian Three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus). In an article published in Biotropica in June 2014, we provocatively called out the Brazilian government for failing to live up to the environmental commitments made in its World Cup bid, and proposed that they should preserve 1,000 ha of the armadillo's habitat for every goal scored. At the time the paper received media coverage worldwide; here, we reflect on the experience of writing one of Biotropica's most high-profile commentaries and the conservation outcomes of our essay. We end by providing guidance for other authors on how to harness high-profile events for conservation action.