Efetividade de Gestão da APA Litoral Norte do Estado da Bahia

Abstract

With the biodiversity degradation and decrease in the quantity and quality of ecosystem services generated by this biodiversity, an attempt to preserve them was the creation of protected areas. This strategy is an important mechanism for in-situ conservation of biodiversity and therefore it is widely used as a main conservation tool. In Brazil, most of the protected areas are organized by Federal Law 9.985/2000 and classified by their objectives.In order to achieve its objectives, all Conservation Units must have instruments that allow their effective management. To evaluate the effectiveness of protected area management, several methods have been developed, including the Rapid Assessment and Prioritization of Protected Area Management (RAPPAM), which has been widely used to evaluate federal conservation units in Brazil and many countries. In this context, this study aims to evaluate, through the application of the RAPPAM method, the effectiveness of the management of the Conservation Unit of the Environmental Protection Area-APA Litoral Norte of the State of Bahia, located in the geographic coordinates 12º34'58.15 "S and 38º02'13.52" W. Considering the biological and socioeconomic relevance of it, and no such evaluation has been made since its inception in 1995. In addition to the realization of the RAPPAM, a temporal analysis of the vegetation cover of the APA was carried out by means of the digital classification of satellite images, made automatically, supervised by the Maximum Likelihood method, using the Quantum QGis program, also aiming to evaluate The contributions of the economic ecological zoning of APA Litoral Norte of the State of Bahia for the effectiveness of the management of the conservation unit. It was verified that APA LN-BA presents a medium effectiveness of management. The modules Infrastructure, Financial Resources and Research, Evaluation and Monitoring, presented the worst results. This situation is also observed at the national level of the APAs. Regarding spatial and temporal analysis, the results showed an increase in forest cover in the APA Litoral Norte of the State of Bahia. Analyzing this increase due to zoning, there were positive variations, in general, in all the macrozones of zoning, indicating that this instrument has been respected. However, although positive indexes were obtained due to the increase in vegetation cover, it is important to highlight that half of the area with forest cover is located in areas of intensive use, which are subject to greater changes within the Conservation Unit. As alternative measures and with the objective of improving the management, we mainly indicate the need to identify the specific objectives inherent to the reality of the APA, the accomplishment of a private public partnership, to carry out the programs and plans of the Conservation Unit, the encouragement of popular participation through the establishment of communication channels and the establishment of a base within the boundaries of the UC, changes in the economic ecological zoning of the APA Litoral Norte of the State of Bahia with the purpose of favoring the permanence of vegetation cover, with Focus on the already conserved areas and directing actions of integration of the municipalities components of APA LN-BA and the existing units in the environment.