Perception about ecosystem services and protected areas in a watershed with urban-rural interface (Boituva, SP, Brazil)

Abstract

Ecosystem services are essential to human life and can be enhanced and potentialized with the creation of protected areas, either in the rural or urban context. Based on a study carried out in Boituva / SP, this study aimed to analyze the perception of residents of the Ribeirão Pau D'Alho basin, about the natural areas in its surroundings and the possibility of creating new Protected Areas. Special emphasis was given to comparisons between rural residents and those in the urban context. In this watershed, a high priority area for conservation, there is a park called "Parque Ecológico Eugênio Walter", which is not covered by the 'SNUC' (Brazilian Law of Conservation Units), in other words, it isn’t a Protected Area. Using semi-structured interviews, 18 rural and 19 urban dwellers participated in the research, with ages ranging from 18 to 87 years old, most of whom had attended high school. From the interviewees' speech, metaphors were identified and classified as representative of the different ecosystem services, according to analytical models of the human-nature relationship present in the literature. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the perceptions of urban and rural dwellers when considering the existence of natural areas in their surroundings as positive. The cultural ecosystem services, linked to the feeling of well-being that nature promotes, were the most evident in the perception of the respondents in both groups of residents. The Regulating ecosystem service was the second most prominent, being mainly related to climate and air quality in the participants' speech. In general terms, the interviewed population agrees with the creation of a Protected Area in the region and longs for places of leisure and contact with nature. The fact that the city Boituva aspect of being a Municipality of Tourist Interest may explain part of the data obtained. Finally, the results here can guide the implementation of public policies, aimed at the creation of new protected areas in the watershed region focused on this study.