Perception of residents and visitors about the management of Catimbau National Park (Pernambuco, Brazil)

• Autor(a) principal: Santana, Poliana Nunes de
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Valença, Sandro, Ramos, Daniella, Nascimento, Ana Clara Lira do, Soares, Italo Cavalcante da Silva
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Journal of Perspectives in Management
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/index.php/jpm/article/view/243055
• topic: Conservation Area; Catimbau National Park; Environmental Legislation; Tourism; Unidade de Conservação; Parque Nacional do Catimbau; Legislação Ambiental; Turismo

The Catimbau National Park (CNP) is a brazilian Conservation Area (CA) located in the state of Pernambuco. Like others CA in Brazil, CNP faces many management challenges, whereas three of them stand out as preeminent, that of: environmental legislation; tourism practice; and the need for improvement of managing capabilities. Governmental authorities and CNP’s managers have struggle to cope with these challenges in terms of balancing the conflicting demands from two distinct groups, that is, park residents (G1) and visitors (G2). This paper maps out the perceptions from CNP’s residents and visitors regarding these three challenges so as to understand the existing similarities and divergences on those groups’ opinions about such matters. A qualitative research was undertaken. The research corpus was composed by in-depth interviews carried out with participants from both groups. The main findings suggest a: perception dissonance between G1 and G2 concerning environmental legislation; lack of community interest in decision making on CNP management, including the implication related to tourism practices; and understanding upon the necessity for managing enhancements, without indicated, however, which they ought to be. In light of this, this paper points towards the necessity of developing public policies, which may settle down groups’ conflicting demands.