Evaluation of the Integration Effectiveness Among the Coastal Marine Federal Protected Areas of Santa Catarina

Abstract

Coastal-marine environments in Brazil are the most affected by the human occupation process, causing considerable environmental degradation, requiring actions to guide an integrated management in order to maintain the integrity of ecosystems. In Brazil, one of the strategies used for environmental conservation and coastal area management is the creation of Conservation Units. The law under which the Sistema Nacional de Unidades de Conservação (National System of Conservation Units) (SNUC) was created, sets forth guidelines for the management of nearby, juxtaposed or superimposed conservation units in an integrated and participatory manner. In this sense, the coastal-marine Santa Catarina CUs were subject to initiatives aimed at integrating the management of federal CUs in the state, which culminated in the creation of the Center for Integrated Management of Coastal-Marine Conservation Units in Santa Catarina. This study aims to assess to what extent these initiatives were actually translated into the practical actions currently established, as well as the reasons for achieving these results, or not. Although we observed work involving support among CUs, such work could not be characterized as part of an integrated management, as such management should start from the premise that planning and decisions are to be built together, viewing the territory as a whole. It is necessary to actually integrate those federal conservation units under analysis. This integration should not be limited to eliminating the structural deficiencies of the public agency, but ensuring compliance with legal requirements, institutional regulations and collective decisions, achieving greater coherence in territorial management, as well as greater efficiency in the conservation of ecosystems and maintenance and management of the services associated with them.