The concession process in the State Park of Ibitipoca (MG, Brazil): preliminary questions about social control of partnerships for tourism

• Autor(a) principal: Sancho-Pivoto, Altair
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Rodrigues, Camila Gonçalves de Oliveira, Botelho, Eloise Silveira, Martins Fonseca, Virginia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Ecoturismo
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unifesp.br/index.php/ecoturismo/article/view/13998
• topic: áreas protegidas; visitação; parcerias; participação; protected areas; visitation; Partnerships; participation

Partnerships for tourism in Protected Areas are a strategy for implementing public policies for nature conservation. Considering the context in which they are implemented globally, implicated by the developments of neoliberalism in environmental public policies, the appropriation of participative processes to endorse private interests, and specifically the diverse interests of social actors at stake, it is essential to monitor social control practices and the effects on the administration of natural and cultural heritage and on land development. This work aims to analyze the current process of public consultation for the concession of support services to the visitation at the State Park of Ibitipoca (PEIb – MG, Brazil) in light of the responsibility for social control. For that, the qualitative and exploratory study involved a bibliographic and document collection regarding the concession process at PEIb, as well as non-participative observation in a public hearing. Data analysis, guided by public values such as responsibility for social control, shows that: the concession of support services for visitation at PEIb is presented to society with no opportunity of social construction starting from the designing or planning of the partnership at stake; the concession model had limited aspects regarding social inclusion and the reduction of social inequalities; and different social control mechanisms were added in order to interrupt or redirect the process toward a collaborative and democratic construction, aiming to improve quality of life, develop the land, and to conserve natural and cultural heritage. Social participation and the activation of mechanisms of social control over the concessions in Protected Areas can be a measure to assess the exercise of democracy in the implementation of public policies and in the appropriation of protected areas as a public good.