Parque Estadual do Bacanga – São Luís, MA, 1980 – 2018: o fracasso de uma política institucional de conservação ambiental

Abstract

The Bacanga State Park is an important source of drinking water for a relevant part of the population of the state capital of Maranhão. According to the National System of Conservation Unit, the park is classified as an integral protection area, and therefore, urban uses are not permitted within its limits. However, urban growth has occurred in this region in a rapid and uncontrolled way. Thus, the objective of this work was to understand how the urban expansion of the capital of the State of Maranhão, has modified the limits of the protected area. In order to achieve this goal, firstly, a context of the urban expansion of the city, started in the 60s of the 20th century and the motivating demographic growth and occupations in the Park area was established. The methodology used was a bibliographical survey, on-site visits, direct interviews and the formulation of maps. The results indicated a trend towards an increasing use of the Bacanga State Park space for city growth, with neighborhoods completely inserted within the borders of the protected area, such as Coroadinho and Vila dos Frades. These occupations constitute a flagrant disregard for environmental legislation, which deals with the need to protect areas in which environmental services are essential in maintaining the quality of life for people and other populations that compose the local biodiversity. Moreover, the research highlighted that there is no effective management of the Conservation Unit by the responsible agency, besides its complete inertia in assuming the role of conciliatory agent of the existing conflicts, thus identifying the attempts of the park’s territorial limits, in order to exclude neighborhoods that expanded rapidly over the area, as the only form of action in place