Planning at trails of public use at Serra de Itabaiana National Park

Abstract

Seeking to subsidize the elaboration of the Plan of Handling of the Park National Mountain of Itabaiana, this research objectified to evaluate the coming impacts of the public use and to verify if such impacts are noticed by the visitors. For this, it was evaluated the coming impacts of the public use, a cognitive map about positive and negative impacts of the trails was elaborated and the visitors' environmental perception was analyzed by means of interviews. It was verified that, in spite of the fact that the park presents a beautiful landscape which favors the practice of the ecotourism, the trails present signs that its support capacities are close or surpassing its limits; and that the visitors are not sensitized for the importance of a National Park. It is ended that that Unit of Conservation finds itself without efficient tools of administration, such as planning and monitoring of the trails, infrastructure of minimum impact, education programs and environmental interpretation, surveillance, dispossession of the lands that are inside the park; enough and qualified human resources. So that the negative impacts are minimized it is necessary to implement public politics of partner-environmental stamp that considers the ecotourism as instrument for the maintainable development of the area.