Tourism, Protected Areas And Social Inclusion:
An analysis of Área de Proteção Ambiental dos Recifes de Corais (APARC) e Área de Proteção Ambiental de Jenipabu (APAJ), RN
Tourism, Protected Areas, Social Inclusion. Área de Proteção Ambiental de Jenipabu e Área de Proteção Ambiental dos Recifes de Corais.
The present work aims to know how the planning and management of tourism within the Área de Proteção Ambiental de Jenipabu (APAJ) and the Área de Proteção Ambiental dos Recifes de Corais (APARC) has been developed from the point of view of the social inclusion of traditional populations from the environment. For this, the research adopted a qualitative approach, being exploratory and descriptive. The data was collected through the use of semi-structured interview scripts, Having as study population the social actors allied tourist activity, as well as the appreciation of conservation units’ official and legal documents. In order to appreciate the data, it was used the content analysis method based on the dimensions of social inclusion in tourism develop by Sancho and Irving (2007). From the results, it was possible to verify that both creation processes (of APAJ and APARC) were not conducted in a participatory and consultative way, since there was no consultation and participation of the communities in their creation and implementation processes. Regarding tourism, it has been observed that it is the main economic activity; in the APAJ tourism is concentrated in the beaches of Redinha Nova, Santa Rita and in the mobile dunes of Jenipabu beach through buggy, dromedary rides and esquidunas. While in APARC the tourism is developed from coral reefs exploration, in Maracajaú beach, is where the tourist flow is concentrated, the tours are operationalized in Rio de Fogo, where the fisherman are actually in registration phase to apply in the activity, and in the Perobas’ community, who operates is a local businessman allied with the fisherman from the community. Finally, on the social inclusion in the planning and management of tourism in the APAJ and APARC, it is possible to see that this theme is exclusively linked to the capacity of the activity to generate employment and income, especially with the creation of new jobs offered by the tourism market. In this sense, it is possible to affirm that the conception of this concept prevails in a purely economic approach, in a reductionist speech, different from the one that the promotion of the social inclusion establishes, that is, more social integration between the social actors involved with tourism, guarantee of social and participative rights, citizenship, active participation in the process of planning and management, equitable distribution of benefits and new opportunities of insertion in the labor market with improvements in quality of life. In addition, social inclusion involves and must be extensively worked on to ensure access to education, social services, health, investments in basic infrastructure and political rights.