Panorama da interpretação ambiental nos parques nacionais do Brasil

Abstract

The Brazilian National Parks are the Protect Areas with the bigger ecotourism character under the guardianship of Sistema Nacional das Unidades de Conservação da Natureza legislation. One of the legal objectives of the parks that reinforce the responsibility to promote ecotourism is the promotion of environmental interpretation. However, the interpretive plans, or even the projects and registers of activities of interpretation, are hard to find in the parks. In this context, understanding the importance of the implementation of this method to the valorization of the Protected Areas and ecotourism, this paperwork sought to know the current ways trodden to the consolidation of the interpretation of the Brazilian National Parks through two phases of data survey. The secondary data obtained through document and bibliographical analyses about the Brazilian National Parks and environmental interpretation, identified a few tendencies, such as the importance of academic involvement with the studies in these Protected Areas, both for the elaboration and evaluation of the interpretative means already implemented. The analysis of the questionnaire applied to the managers of these Parks showed a few patterns related to the phytogeographic domain that these Protected Areas are inserted, the age of the parks, and the development of the interpretation. The number of visitors did not present a clear pattern. Another important point in this same context is the relationship between the development of the interpretation and the institutional presence of the managing body in the Parks. Therefore, the results of the analyses of this investigation will allow the enhancement of strategies of visitor management to the Parks and further touristic categories of Protected Areas.