To coincide with the Rio Olympics we have posted a short series of blogs to reflect on and discuss the future of Rio State’s fabulous state parks.
Photo: Susanne F. Schmitt
Nature, wildlife and parks are central to Rio’s identity internationally and within Brazil: the iconic statue of Christ the Redeemer watches over the people of Rio de Janeiro from its vantage point atop Corcovado peak in Tijuca Forest National Park. On the opening days of the games TV viewers around the world got a sense of the Atlantic rain forests as the cyclists courageously raced the Serra da Tijuca decent and the BBC delightfully aligned the virtues of athleticism with iconic Brazil wildlife in their trailer for the olympics games.
Over Easter we toured state parks in Rio State with our families to ground truth and develop a framework we are developing to restate the policy case for protected areas. This frames PAs as assets that are created through a range of investments and that generate various forms of value for groups within society.
It was a glorious trip. Rio State’s parks conserve world class natural assets – rainforest clad peaks, idyllic tropical beaches, mind-blowing birdlife and much more. We explored the parks and talked with the park managers and scientists. Each park we visited was facing challenges and we applied our asset approach to see if it could generate some fresh thinking.
The following three blogs presents some ideas and perspectives that were inspired by our protected area asset approach. Our visits were brief so our understanding of the management context of each park is no doubt superficial. Non-the-less we offer up these ideas in the spirit of collective brain-storming and discussion on protected area futures in Rio State and beyond.
Protected Area assets: a framework for restating the policy case for Brazilian PAs
Investing in Tamarin landscapes: an asset-based vision
Tres Picos State Park: utilizing transport infrastructure assets to generate value
We would welcome and value your comments, reactions and suggestions!
Paul Jepson, Susanne Schmitt, Richard Ladle, Ana Malhado
Our research is funded by Brazil CNPq-PVE Grant#400325/2014-4
