Ação coletiva, conselho consultivo e gestão: um estudo na Área de Proteção Ambiental Serra da Mantiqueira

Abstract

Lately the National System of Conservation Units (NSCU) had foresees as one of its guidelines that the local populations should be involved in the creation and administration of the conservation units (CUs). One of the instruments foreseen by NSCU in this sense is the management boards creation in CUs. However, so that these spaces really reach its objectives, they need to face and to overcome collective action problems, both in the level of this space, in the establishment of agreements and united actions, and in the level CU, once, especially in CUs where the private property remains, as in the environmental protection areas (EPAs), it is essential that the proprietors get involved in the natural resources conservation. Mantiqueira Mountain Range EPA, ordained in 1985, is a CU that integrates the south corridor of the Atlantic Forest. Recently its Management Boards was formed (Conapam). The objective of the present work was to study the construction process of the participatory administration in the Mantiqueira Mountain Range EPA, focusing the process of Conapam implementation. Specifically it was aimed to rescue aspects of the environmental social relationships built in the Mantiqueira Mountain Range along its history and to investigate the formation process and composition of Conapam. Of qualitative nature, the field research was accomplished through participant observation and interviews with the current counselors. The results shows that among the principal limits to the construction of a participatory administration are the population perception of the CU manager, the lack of intelligibility on the rules of the game (environmental legislation) and the socio-economics and cultural heterogeneity of this EPA. It was also observed that in its current composition, that doesn't reflect the heterogeneity of the Mantiqueira Mountains, the Conapam shows little effective to be a representation and conflicts negotiation space among the several actors involved in the administration of the natural resources in the EPA.