This dissertation addresses landscape management as a territorial management tool in Environmental Protected Areas (APA) in Brazil. APAs are a legal category of environmental protected areas that allow the presence of traditional communities and the development of economic activities within their area. They account for a third of all protected areas in the country and demand a new approach to territorial management due to their level of complexity, which involves different groups of stakeholders, interests, and territorialities. Within such context is Right Whale Environmental Protection Area (Área de Proteção Ambiental da Baleia Franca, APABF) (Santa Catarina, Brasil), established in 2000 to protect the Right Whale (Eubalaena australis) and its breeding grounds, covering a total area of 156,100 hectares. Comprising nine municipalities, it presents potentials and conflicts associated with its surrounding natural and cultural landscape. It is threatened by population growth, urbanization, mass tourism, as well as the degradation of dune and sandbar vegetation and ecosystems. Management challenges point to the need of integrating urban policies and committing the municipalities with the management of the territory and the conservation of its values. Thus, the present dissertation aims to describe and assess the process of landscape transformation in APABF, in order to identify its key values and support the territorial management policies of this protected area. Therefore, it is based on the hypothesis that the management of APABF - based on landscape values - is able to foster, integrate and jointly commit the municipalities for the conservation of such values. It is a qualitative and participatory research, combining a theoretical-methodological framework developed in Catalunya, about the management of landscape and its values, with the Geosystem-Territory-Landscape (GTP) model proposed by Georges Bertrand. Data collection consists in primary data: a questionnaire applied to APABF's Management Council (CONAPABF), interviews with stakeholders in the territory, the production of thematic maps, and data analysis with the software Atlas. ti. ; and secondary data: minutes from CONAPABF meetings, APABF reports, as well as published masters and doctoral research. Data analysis and discussion, structured through the GTP model, shows that of all landscapes that comprise APABF, most changes have occurred through time by the coastline (dunes and sandbar vegetation), and three important periods have been identified that have determined its current state. The first one of midden and indigenous occupation; the second one of Azorean and Italian occupation; and the third one marked by inner migrations. The landscape and the values attributed by the different stakeholder groups are the main linking element between them and the APA, as well as an important tool for territorial management. The main stakeholder groups, their interests and strategies are focused on the coastal landscape - highlighting the omission of city administrations in the regulation and enforcement of land use and occupation laws, thus compromising the conservation of territory values. Its territory is constituted by a set of concrete and symbolic values regarding the coastal landscape. The most important ones are the natural and ecological, the productive and the historical values. However, other values have to be thought of, which are considered in Catalunya and are also present here. They are the aesthetical, identity-related and symbolic ones, spiritual and religious ones, as well as values based on their social use. The management process of APABF surpasses the political-juridical limitations of a territorial management process. Based on landscape assessment, eight Objectives of Landscape Quality (OLQ) have been formulated, so as to be used as a guideline for the municipalities to maintain and strengthen their values. The theoretical-methodological reference on landscape management has shown to be an important conceptual framework for rethinking and structuring a territorial management plan in which territorial and landscape values are the main integrated management tool for protected areas.
| Date of Award | 3 Aug 2017 |
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| Original language | Portuguese |
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| Awarding Institution | - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
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| Supervisor | Angela da Veiga Beltrame (Director) & Albert Pèlachs (Director) |
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