Geoconservation strategies as a subsidy to foster interpretation in protected areas: a case study from the Itatiaia National Park, Brazil

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Mucivuna, Vanessa Costa
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Assessment; Avaliação; Geological Heritage; Geological site; Geomorfossítio; Geomorphosite; Interpretação; Interpretation; Inventário; Inventory; Patrimônio Geológico; Sítio geológico
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/44/44144/tde-04072022-112510/

For a long time, protected areas have focused their efforts on conserving biotic aspects of nature. However, since the 2010s, several international initiatives have been undertaken to integrate geodiversity and geoheritage in the management of protected areas through a broader concept of nature. Nevertheless, Brazilian protected areas have not yet included geoconservation and geoheritage in their work programmes despite the advances. Based on this, the main objective of this study was to elaborate the first stages of the geoconservation strategies to serve as a core database to subsidise future interpretation actions in the inventoried geological sites. In this context, the Itatiaia National Park was selected as the study area because it was the first protected area established in Brazil and it has important records of the regions geological history in the rocks and landforms. The following methodological procedures were applied to achieve the objectives of the thesis: (i) systematic literature review on several themes; (ii) data analysis; (iii) geological sites inventory, (iv) quantitative assessment, and (v) products from the previous steps, such as fact sheets of the inventoried sites, proposals to integrate the inventoried geological sites in the management plan, development of interpretative topics, themes and objectives, and methodological guidelines to elaborate interpretation plans for geological sites in National Parks. The results include seventeen geosites, distributed in six geological frameworks, in addition to seven geodiversity sites and three viewpoints. The quantitative assessment showed that they have potential to be integrated into educational and interpretative programmes, as well as in the public use activities, as they have low degradation risk. Furthermore, the management plan analysis provided promising results due to the possibilities of integrating the inventoried geological sites throughout the document. Finally, the results obtained throughout this research made it possible to select sites with the highest interpretative potential in the park and identify interpretative topics, themes, and objectives. These data can (and should) be used in future stages of the interpretative planning to contribute to disseminating the parks geological history for students, visitors, and residents of the surrounding communities.