Motivations of landowners to create Federal Private Natural Heritage Reserves in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the amount of private protected areas has increased worldwide, contributing to nature conservation and protecting biodiversity, landscapes and, in some cases, even cultural values associated with the use of natural resources. The motivations for landowners to convert their land into protected areas are still poorly studied, despite the importance of the conclusions of these studies to help in the development of public policies that promote the creation of new Private Natural Heritage Reserves (RPPN in Portuguese). In this study, we present the results of a research centered on the motivations of landowners in the state of Santa Catarina, south of Brazil, to create federal Private Natural Heritage Reserves (PNHRs) in their lands. Based on the official data of Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity – ICMBio – we identify 67 federal PNHRs. However, after the verification process, we concluded that only 65 of them were legally established. We visited 63 PNHRs and interviewed the owners or managers of all the legal reserves about their motivations to create the protected areas. The results indicated 16 reasons divided into six categories of motivations: conservationist, conservationist/economic, economic, psychosocial, protection of land ownership and imposition. Responses were more frequent for the conservationist (41) and psychosocial (18) motivations, meaning that the landowners decided to create the PNHRs to contribute to the conservation of the land and for their personal satisfaction in doing so. The protection of the lands against roads, small hydropower plants or people invasion were pointed by 15 respondents. The conservationist/economic, economic and impositions motivations were pointed, respectively, by 11, 6 and 4 PNHR owners. In the end, we discussed some legal and ethical issues related to the creation of PNHRs for purposes other than biodiversity conservation.