Desenvolvimento e políticas públicas em comunidades da área de proteção ambiental Paytuna, Monte Alegre, Pará

Abstract

The creation of protected areas can be considered an effective strategy to protect biodiversity and its natural resources, since it establishes the control of territories, defining boundaries and specifying dynamics in their use and occupation. The State of Pará has made great progress in the creation of Conservation Units, currently having 25 units. Regarding the creation of these units in many times, especially when the mode of integral protection, reflects an antagonism between the logic of traditional communities and the preservationist and conservationist perspectives, causing conflicts of various natures, among them, the non-recognition of practices and customs. of local populations. The creation of the Paytuna Environmental Protection Area in the municipality of Monte Alegre is a reflection of the state of Pará's progress in the use of this natural resource protection strategy. In this sense, the objective was to investigate the effects of the creation of the unit in question on socioeconomic development, taking as reference four communities: Ererê, Maxirá, Maxirazinho and Nazaré. In order to do so, field data collection and documentary research were carried out from a quantitative and qualitative approach, using techniques such as the application of questionnaires to obtain the Living Condition Index - LCI in the communities studied, and analysis of documents. The documentary research allowed the elaboration of descriptive texts about the pertinent information to the accomplishment of the research objectives. The data collected in the field were interpreted by descriptive statistics, using the Excel for Windows program. The results indicate that the process of creation / implementation of APA Paytuna presented flaws that hinder the management of the PA. The most popular public policies in the APA correspond to cash transfer programs such as “Bolsa Familia” and “Seguro Defeso”, and actions from environmental policies aimed at improving the quality of life of local populations are incipient and reduced. Regarding the living conditions index of the communities, despite some deprivations regarding the factors and characteristics of development, the results were satisfactory. Thus, it was concluded that the creation of APA Paytuna has made a relative contribution to the socioeconomic development of the studied communities, making evident the need to elaborate and implement more effective environmental public policies, which consider local populations as an integral part of the whole process of construction.