Territórios da conservação: preservação e conflitos nas unidades de conservação de Boa Nova - Estado da Bahia/Brasil

Abstract

The Conservation units (UCs) are areas with relevant natural characteristics, defined and delimited by the government with the purpose of protecting important habitats and ecosystems. When established, the protected areas are supported by an instituted model of norms and impositions of new political and socio-environmental relations that are distinct from the territorialities previously established by its own residents. Often the creation of protected areas, especially the UCs integrate protection, is accompanied by conflicts that involve multiple dimensions (political, economic, social, cultural and environmental), since these territories were occupied, used or aimed for socioeconomic uses. This is the current situation of the federal conservation units of the municipality of Boa Nova, the National Park and the Wildlife Refuge, located in the southwest of the state of Bahia, which have as their basic objective the protection of the natural environments of the Caatinga - Mata-Atlântica ecotone, mainly the Altitude Semideciduous’s Seasonal Forest. The UCs of Boa Nova have socio-environmental conflicts triggered, above all, by the low level of implementation; for having all their territories composed of private properties, largely anthropized by the intense occurrence of extensive livestock, agriculture, extraction of forest resources and the culture of deforestation and burning. Thus, given the problematic of the relationships established in the territorial cut, this research aimed to analyze the socio-environmental conflicts between environmental preservation and the uses of the conservation territories of Boa Nova, using the contribution of political ecology and the production of conflict typologies. This is an exploratory research, based on case study, literature review and document analysis. For data collection, technical field visits, photographic records, systematic observation with the help of the field diary and semistructured interviews. As a synthesis of the analysis performed, it is observed that the UCs of Boa Nova were created for a noble reason to protect endangered flora and fauna. However, as these are very anthropized territories, with a rural population highly dependent on natural resources, the choice of the “integral protection” categories created conflicting situations between legal norms and socioeconomic needs, especially due to the financial inefficiency of the federal managing body to the expropriation and compensation of land and implementation of protected areas established in the territory.