O parque Natural Regional do Pantanal, Brasil: uma experiência em áreas privadas

Abstract

The Regional Natural Park of the Pantanal is an area with approximately 1.400.000 hectares, the sum of the farm areas located in Mato Grosso do Sul, on the plain of Pantanal Mato- Grossense, comprehending the rural part of the municipalities of Aquidauana (80%), Rio Verde de Mato Grosso (50%), Corumbá (40%) and Miranda (40%). The Park, organised in private areas, incorporates an innovative experience: it was created in 2002 with a proposal of local development. Its differential: the owners´ commitment is free, which leads to the existence of discontinuous areas and to practices of diversified economic activities. The Chartre´s premises (The Park´s Letter) will be established by representatives of the regional farmers, the local community, the State and the municipalities involved, the ville portes , compatible with the convention of sustainable development. The model adopted was based on the French natural parks, and this is the first experience outside France. The Park tries to foment economic activities other than the pre-existing cattle raising, but complementary to it: pousadas pantaneiras (Pantanal inns), Pantaneiro veals, park schools; biodiversity with jaguars and with cougars. All of these are connected with tourism, and are compatible with the permanence of men in their place, keeping their habits and their culture in a unique environment. During the elaboration of this thesis, the park was in a delicate situation because the Instituto Parque do Pantanal (Pantanal Park Institute) - its managing institution - was going through a crisis, with difficulties to negotiate its institutionalization process with the relevant actors, aspects which reflected on the Park consolidation. The crisis comes from contradictions and conflicts inherent to the area complexity: environment protection, valorisation of nature and landscape, on the one hand; and its economic appropriation, interests, wishes to modernize traditional culture, on the other. Despite the crisis and difficulties, we stand that the Pantanal Natural Park has enormous potential and was able to integrate, recreate and deal with local development, from the convention of sustainable development and sustainable tourism, reinventing, thus, the Pantanal.