Public-private partnerships and public use in conservation units

a look at the level of social control in the concession process of State Park of Ibitipoca (MG)

Abstract

Despite the recognized benefits associated with visitation in protected areas such as parks, currently, many of these areas coexist with a reality of precariousness and/or lack of support infrastructure for visitation, in addition to the inability to carry out new investments in the face of the growing demand for visitors. As a result, in recent years, there has been a growing number of initiatives led by the State, in different spheres, aimed at establishing partnerships with the private sector and civil society for the management of visitation support services. Inspired by this scenario, the present work aimed to understand the process of conception/modeling of the concession of support services for visitation in the State Park of Ibitipoca (MG) in the light of participation and social control. The methodological procedures involved bibliographical and documental research and the case study, through interviews with territorial agents directly involved in the process. The main results show limitations to participation and social control, especially in relation to the prior definition of the partnership model to be adopted, restricted involvement of segments of society in the process of designing the concession model and low access to information.