Environmental perception and wind energy: an analysis of the transformations in the territory
Wind energy. Perception. Environmental crisis.
In the face of growing energy demand and environmental crisis situations, alternatives to the expansion of clean energy production are being explored internationally. In this context, wind energy has been considered one of the most prospective alternatives for Brazil, and especially the Rio Grande do Norte, in which the geographic cut of the research is delimited. In this sense, the qualitative research aims to analyze how the selected actors perceive the implementation of the wind farms in their territory and what is environmental in this perception, in the expectation that the complementarity of the two issues can provide a panorama of how the Wind farms have affected people's lives and the possible conflicts that arise from this dynamic. This is because the theoretical framework expressed in the research understands environmental problems from a holistic perspective, while problems that are inserted in social, cultural, economic contexts, that is, it is part of a network of complex and sometimes conflicting relationships, Which means that, from this perspective, the environmental justification of wind energy as clean energy does not exempt it from its socio-environmental responsibility within the territory. To meet the research objectives, semi-structured interviews with the selected actors will be carried out, namely: (i) residents who do not have leased land; (Ii) residents with leased land; And (iii) local governors of the municipalities of Areia Branca, Galinhos and Guamaré, based on content analysis. Specifically, the research proposes to 1) analyze the context of wind farm implementation, 2) identify and analyze the environmental perception in the discourses, and 3) identify the existing problems in this dynamic: transformations and conflicts. The research and analysis of actors' perception of wind farms is based on a fundamental question that involves the interaction between society and the environment, the perception of the population regarding the experience and the transformations that took place in the territory, it is about this object That the research looks at.