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PEDRO DA CUNHA E MENEZES

The author is a career Brazilian Foreign Service officer. He has been Executive Director of the Joint Management Commission for Tijuca National Park in Rio de Janeiro, and is currently serving as Consul at the Brazilian Consulate General in Sydney, Australia.

Citation: This paper may be cited as: [Authors.] 2005. [Article title.] In Ted Trzyna, ed., The Urban Imperative. California Institute of Public Affairs, Sacramento, California.

1. TIJUCA: THE MOTHER OF ALL URBAN PROTECTED AREAS

When, in a conversation between two friends, someone mentions he would like to spend the weekend in a national park, what comes straight to mind is a remote natural area of astonishing beauty, where wildlife and vegetation are forever protected. The knowledgeable will immediately dream of Yellowstone, Chitwan, Serengeti, Galapagos, the Great Barrier Reef, or Iguaçu Falls. Most people will think of a protected area in a remote region within a 300 km range of their homes. Very few will even remember the national parks that, more often than not, exist within the great metropolises of the world, at the doorstep of hundreds of millions of city dwellers.

The majority of people – including most environmentalists – perceive protected areas (PAs) in urban areas as mere fragments of bushland, far too small, degraded and impacted to deserve a high priority within any public nature-conservation policy. The past history of environmental protection, however, is intimately linked to the establishment of urban PAs. For that matter, in the future as well, the basic goals of nature conservation as a whole will not be achieved unless we change the way we have currently been regarding and (mis)managing the many urban PAs throughout the world.

Let us take the Brazilian case as an example. One could say the history of nature conservation in Brazil started in 1861 with the legal decree that established the Forest of Tijuca on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, then the national capital.

Tijuca was created to protect the severely logged and degraded watersheds from which Rio sourced its drinking water. A vigorous expropriation of private lands was followed by a very successful reforestation scheme, which mostly utilized native species.

In those times, management plans were still an unheard-of concept but, in its first 30 years, Tijuca was so well managed that today, 150 years later, its early programs of reforestation, environmental education, recreation, and governance can still be successfully applied in any park, anywhere in the world.

The achievements of Tijuca were the result of an intellectual exercise undertaken by a tiny élite of the Brazilian Imperial Government. The members of a kind of think tank led by Minister Bom Retiro saw far ahead of their own time. They understood it would be impossible to conserve such a vast forest at the doorstep of Brazil’s most populous city, unless common citizens did not see a reason for it to be preserved. According to Bom Retiro’s view, Tijuca was to be managed as the main water catchment for Rio, but not only for this purpose. Tijuca was also to be geared up for recreation and botanical research. Instead of preventing the public from visiting it, the administration actually encouraged the establishment of hotels and restaurants within Tijuca, or in its immediate vicinity.

Although the idea that a forest should be preserved for its scenic, botanical, and recreational values was completely attuned to contemporary European and American cultural trends, it was something absolutely new in Brazil. Indeed, it was the first time in Brazilian history that nature was not regarded as a hindrance to development, to be erased for the betterment of civilization.

Overseas, this line of thought originated, in 1872, from Yellowstone, the first national park in the world. Seven years later, in 1879, the Royal National Park was created in Sydney, Australia. The then New South Wales Premier, John Robertson, regarded its establishment as the fulfillment of  “a need for a Park where the Sydney inhabitants could escape from the pressures of urban living and enjoy recreation facilities in a natural setting.”

For it creators, however, Tijuca meant more than just providing recreation for Rio’s inhabitants. Recreation was viewed as a tool to help the government maintain the integrity of a highly impacted natural area. The fight to expropriate land from powerful farmers to guarantee the reforestation of Tijuca had been a hard and expensive one. Bom Retiro soon understood he would need allies to keep the integrity of the newly replanted forest as a public reserve. Therefore, under his supervision, there was a conscious effort to blaze and maintain a network of more than 100km of recreational trails. The government also encouraged the best Brazilian novelists to set some of their stories in and around the woods of Tijuca, and thus create an aura of public ownership over it.

It was essential to build a feeling of respect and love for this urban forest among the common citizen. As part of this strategy to enlarge the group committed to protecting Tijuca and its watershed, Emperor Pedro II himself would often show his appreciation of the forest, where he would take his entire family for picnics and outings.

Bom Retiro, however, envisaged a Tijuca that could provide more than recreation and water. Under his ministry, Tijuca’s mission was expanded. In 1875, Brazil opened its first school of forestry. Its grounds were located in the Imperial Botanical Garden on the doorstep of the Tijuca Forest. Bom Retiro knew what he was doing: In placing the school there, he took advantage of the country’s best professors and scholars, who either taught at the capital’s universities or were researchers at the gardens. It was the best of both worlds. The students had access to the finest academics the empire could offer, as well as a fantastic experimental site, provided by Tijuca, a Forest largely replanted by man.

With the fall of the empire in 1889, however, the balance of power changed and Bom Retiro lost his influence. Coincidentally, around the same time, conservationist thinking all over the world was beginning to change direction. The trend now was to foster the protection of large tracts of wilderness and conserve the habitat of endangered species. In this sense, most urban protected areas tended to be relegated to their original mission of providing drinking water and recreation for populous cities.

2. THE MANAGEMENT OF URBAN PROTECTED AREAS UNDER THE NEW CONSERVATION PARADIGM

In the 1940s, amid a movement that had already created Brazil’s first national parks, Raymundo de Castro Maya, the then director of Tijuca, struggled to see it elevated to the category of a Park. His efforts were in vain. Indeed, his ideas seemed absolutely out of place, when most of the country’s vast Amazon, Cerrado, and Pantanal regions were still completely lacking any protection. According to the new paradigm, national parks were devised to protect large and pristine tracts of ecologically relevant terrain. Definitely not the case with Tijuca.

Tijuca would only be elevated to National Park status in 1961, in a political gesture devised to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of the reforestation scheme that gave life to it.

Paradoxically, Tijuca’s elevation to park status was detrimental to its users. The conservationist mainstream ideas of the time in Brazil induced a management that refused to recognize a complementarity between the park and its adjacent metropolis. Around that time, federal and state conservation agencies started to run their urban parks in a similar fashion to the way they managed their more remote and less-impacted protected areas. Recreation was perceived to be a serious environmental impact. There were even attempts to close off many highly used trails.

The reasoning for this is based on the consensually agreed primary objective of a national park as  protection and preservation of nature’s integrity. Recreation is highly impacting: The proximity to big cities generates pressures such as arson, encroachments, and widespread introduction of exotic species, among other problems. In this context, man is a potential enemy that must be kept at bay. Recreation must be closely monitored and uncontrolled visitation totally forbidden.

That was just the surface of a problem that has ever since affected Tijuca and all other Brazilian urban protected areas. The fact that urban PAs were now perceived to be threatened by their proximity to large cities – and, to an extent, seemed too impacted to be relevant in terms of nature conservation – lowered them in the priority of conservation agencies.

In this sense, when compared to larger and better preserved protected areas, where biodiversity is significant, where one can still find large mammals or endangered species and whose boundaries are not subject to as much pressure, urban parks undeniably lose relevance. In other words, in a context of budgetary constraints, small, fragmented, encroached, often isolated, urban PAs do not have much of a case against their wilderness or more remote counterparts. Human pressure, arson, the epidemic occurrence of exotic species, both fauna and flora, pollution – which in some cases even contaminates water catchments – and garbage turn urban PAs into management nightmares.

From the point of view of a global nature conservation strategy, it seems justifiable to prioritize larger and better-preserved protected areas. However, when we look at the whole system of protected areas in the context of the wider perspective of government decision-making processes, planning, and spending, it might just make sense to think slightly differently.

Ultimately, who are conservation agencies protecting areas from? The answer, as tough as it might sound is: people and the damage people are capable of causing. In this regard, there are two ways of enforcing such protection: (1) perceiving people as the enemy, and sealing off PAs from them; and (2) educating people for a cause that does make sense, when well explained, and turning the majority of people into allies of that very same cause. History has proven that the first option, while sometimes effective, is just a temporary containment only achieved with the deployment of force and police measures. Conversely, the second alternative, although slower to achieve results, in the end bears lasting and enduring fruits.

The way Brazilian and, for that matter, most urban PAs throughout the world have generally been managed until now, nevertheless does not seem to have taken into account their obvious vocation to reach out and interact with a large cross-section of citizens. Brasília National Park, at the heart of the country’s capital, is typical of this senseless reality. It has been sealed off to the public for most of its forty-odd years of existence. In fact, out of its 28.000 ha, only a tiny area welcomes visitors. The site features a network of mineral-water public swimming pools. These pools are heavily used but, overwhelmingly, bathers do not know they are in a national park. Indeed, the vast majority believes the pools are a public aquatic centre, named simply “The Mineral Water.” Despite the high level of use and its strategic location within the country’s political decision-making center, until recently, there never was a commitment by the national agency whose responsibilities include national parks, IBAMA (the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), to take on this unique opportunity to raise awareness of the larger cause of protecting nature.  

In Rio de Janeiro, the cultural capital of Brazil, a similar process has occurred. Tijuca National Park, the most-visited protected area in the country, had its visitor center completed many years after Itatiaia and Serra dos Órgãos National Parks which, together, do not receive a third of Tijuca’s visitors. Even today, Brazil’s most visited monument, the towering statue of Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado Mountain, which is within Tijuca National Park, does not have its own visitor center. In fact, its area is so poorly signposted that 90 percent of its visitors don’t even know they are inside a national park.

The most startling case, however, is that of Belém, the largest urban centre of the Amazon, with close to 2 million inhabitants. As Brazil struggles to fight the deforestation of the Amazon Forest, Belém’s tourist brochures bring visitors’ attention to the mango trees that provide shade in its main avenues. Meanwhile, in the heart of Belém lies, forgotten and abandoned, Utinga State Park, a rich example of Amazonian jungle. Its headquarters, built less than a decade ago, is already falling apart. The park is riddled with garbage and remnants of stolen cars. Apart from fishermen and poachers of small mammals, no one goes there.

It is a sad and unfortunate reality. Urban protected areas, while small and under heavy pressure, very often provide the only opportunity for contact with nature for a significant percentage of the population. In that sense, they are the representatives of the protected areas system.

3. CONSTRUCTING A NEW PARADIGM FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF URBAN PROTECTED AREAS

In democratic countries, the budget is decided according to voter pressure. In the context of an increasingly urbanized world, urban protected areas should incorporate in their mission statements the task of serving as focal points for environmental education. Urban PAs are the recipients of the overwhelming majority of visitors to protected areas throughout the planet. Each well-catered-for visitor, given the right programs of environmental education, guided by intelligent signage, and met by well trained staff will almost certainly become an ally of the greater cause for protected areas. The urban national park or other protected areas located at the visitors’ doorstep, in a major city, will be his reference. It will set the standard. Such visitors will expect all other PAs to have the same level of management as “their” urban PA. They will tend to support park agencies in their struggle to get the funding that will allow them to meet these expectations.

As was stated in the beginning of this article, the battle for the conservation of the Amazon will not be won in the depths of the Amazon Forest. It can and will only be won in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, and the other large Brazilian metropolises. From the populous cities come the news and cultural trends. This is where the opinion makers live and preach. Urban protected areas must be structured to cater for their neighbor, the urban visitor. More than that, they must be one step ahead of public policies that include good environmental practices. They must conquer the user through the examples they set. In environmental education, as in all other fields of life, words that are not matched by deeds become meaningless.

An urban PA must be managed as a huge open classroom for environmental education. Visitors  must be induced to ponder about the conservation challenges of our times and be given the tools to reflect on the best direction for society to steer its long term conservation policies. They must always be aware that they are in a protected area and must understand at all times that this protected area is only one small piece of a complex system of PAs.

We can only dream of halting the deforestation process that runs wild throughout Brazil (and many other parts of the globe) when a significant part of the citizenry is sufficiently educated about the harmful consequences of such actions. Only then will they exert enough political and social pressure to reverse this process. Given that 81 percent of Brazil’s population lives in urban areas, it is easy to conclude that the importance of urban PAs in this struggle is in inverse proportion to their comparatively small geographical area.

However, from where will such an ambitious scheme derive its funding? How should environmental education, recreation, and visitors’ facilities be accorded a higher priority when there are so many “real conservation issues” to attend to? As we know, urban PAs are seriously impacted by pressure from neighboring cities. Encroachments, arson, and dogs and cats are just a few of an endless string of seemingly unsolvable problems posed by large human settlements on protected areas. These are by themselves very expensive and difficult problems to solve.

However, conversely, if cities are the main cause for pressure on Urban PAs, they also provide an incredible source of opportunities.

A first premise of good management of urban PAs is to establish a responsible partnership with local governments. Frequently, urban PAs represent for their neighboring cities more than an environmental asset. In fact, often they carry within themselves social and economic components of great value to urban settlements. Such value might be found in the drinking water they supply, the privileged heights they offer for the pitching of telecommunications antennas, and the leisure facilities they provide for local residents and tourists alike. There is also the less tangible economic value provided by the scenic backdrop they make for otherwise dull and polluted metropolises. Let us take Cape Town as an example. How much is the landscape provided by Table Mountain worth in terms of tourist-generated income? How many tourists do not climb Table Mountain at all, but are enticed into visiting the city by the dramatic pictures of Cape Town with Table Mountain as a backdrop? Would they have come anyway, if the scenery was not so pleasant for the eyes? 

In this sense, it is worth mentioning a study regarding Tijuca National Park, presented at the Second Brazilian Congress of Protected Areas, in 2000. It reflected on the “Plano Maravilha,” the strategic plan devised by the Municipality of Rio to attract new tourists. The plan singled out 40 main tourist attractions in the city, of which four, or ten percent, were located inside Tijuca National Park. After the implementation of the plan, the yearly influx of tourists into Rio went up by 2 million. Therefore, in a simplistic view, Tijuca would have been responsible for attracting ten percent of this influx, that is, 200,000 new tourists each year. Drawing a parallel with the example of Cape Town, isn’t it simplistic to assume that only the visitable attractions of Tijuca  contribute to its luring tourists into coming to Rio? How much is it worth to Rio, as a tourist destination, that its image is associated with the Tijuca Forest, the granite mountains, and the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado?  Without these icons, would Rio de Janeiro deserve the epithet “Marvelous City”?

Local governments have access to sources of funding that can be instrumental in helping the management of urban PAs. They also have, within their administrative structure, a whole range of agencies whose equipment and workforce can be used to assist park managers. Tasks such as garbage collecting, road and building conservation, law enforcement, and even fire fighting can be shared between urban protected areas and local authorities for their mutual benefit. More than that, a good relationship between park management and education authorities, with reference to local schools, can produce a legion of environmentally conscious citizens just with the growing up of a single generation. In that regard, it is highly recommended that urban parks and education authorities work closely together. Education departments should second teachers to work in urban PAs. Urban schools should have their curricula adapted to include periodical, at least yearly, visits to neighboring PAs, where practical classes should be given.

Tijuca National Park has for some years been running a successful program with seconded teachers. Tijuca’s example, however, has not gone very far. Less than 30 kms away, many schoolchildren living within a stone’s throw of Pedra Branca State Park have never been inside the park’s boundaries and still call it by the derogatory word “mato” (“the bush”).

Naturally, a partnership between local authorities and conservation agencies must contemplate sharing management decisions to allow each party to achieve its own long-term goals. Nonetheless, maximum emphasis should be placed on issues of common interest. In that regard, residents associations, hiking clubs, and other NGOs with a history of volunteer work in the protected area should also be called upon to have a say in the management decision-making process. However, in putting in place a process of shared management decisions, duplication of tasks and added layers of authority should be avoided. Ideally, cooperation should occur at decision-making levels. Extreme care should be taken to ensure that only one institution is has responsibility for managing each park. If necessary, a new management institution, subject to a board of directors including national, regional, and local agencies, as well as NGOs, could be created. Experience has shown that this new agency should have its own personnel and its own institutional culture.

On a related issue, it should be noted that large urban settlements tend to be the headquarters for the most relevant agencies of national, regional, and local governments. This would allow urban PAs to raise their profile through simple administrative decisions. The case of Dunas State Park, in the Northeastern Brazilian city of Natal, is paradigmatic. Instead of demolishing existing empty buildings within that PA, it was decided to use them as barracks for the environmental protection unit of the local police force. Only a small fraction of that battalion is actually deployed in the Dunas Park, but the mere fact that a whole battalion has the park as its headquarters, improves park protection and security. Conversely, being stationed inside a protected area also gives police officers a stronger love and understanding for the cause of conservation, which ultimately is their job. Finally, it increases the visibility of environmental law enforcement, and facilitates the dialogue between park users and rangers.

Empty buildings are indeed a common feature of urban PAs. In many cases they are demolished or left to decay, while the headquarters of the park or responsible PA agency is often only a few kilometers away in the midst of the most urbanized part of town. Using these buildings for conservation-friendly organizations would make more sense. That, regrettably, is not always the case. In Rio’s Pedra Branca State Park, for instance, there are a dozen buildings lying idle and in decay, while at the same time the Police Protected Areas Battalion, one of the State’s Bush Fire Brigades, and the State Parks Agency itself are all located in the heart of densely built-up areas.

If for no other reason, park managers should consider turning idle buildings into laboratories and classrooms. These would be a great asset for graduate students of forestry, biology, environmental management, even tourism, of the many universities that exist in any of the large metropolises of the world.

In many countries, the serious problem posed by the lack of qualifications of park managers, rangers, and other protected area staff could be solved by the establishment of a protected area academy. Again, urban PAs could be used as training grounds for these students. As Bom Retiro envisaged almost 150 years ago, it makes sense to locate such an academy close to an urban PA. Proximity to major airports and accommodation facilities is a plus. More importantly, however, is the fact that such an academy could have professors and researchers at local universities as lecturers. In addition, urban PAs offer onsite practical learning. After all, they face some of the worst and hardest to manage pressures faced by PA managers. Among other issues, students would have the opportunity to learn in the field the demanding tasks of fighting the spread of exotic species, mitigating effects of over-visitation, negotiation skills needed to deal with the different – and often opposing – stakeholders of an urban PA, and managing encroachments.

Another unique aspect of urban PAs is their obvious commercial visibility, which facilitates partnerships with the private sector. The headquarters of the largest private enterprises tend to be located in the most important urban centers. This makes it easier for urban PAs – in comparison to their more remote counterparts – to find sponsors and partners for relevant projects. Here, again, the recent costly renovation works at the statue of Christ in Tijuca National Park, substantially paid for by private companies, and the support given by the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras to Dunas State Park are examples to be followed. It must be understood that private sponsorship does not necessarily mean selling out the environment or transforming PAs into “nature theme parks.” On the contrary, it would be senseless for park managers not to explore the possibilities offered to them by their proximity to large companies. The challenge, difficult but achievable, is to find a compromise where the outcome of the partnership is beneficial for all parties involved.

Along the same lines, if over-visitation poses a serious problem to an urban PA, it can also be tailored for its wellbeing. Managers must learn to make use of the huge volunteer workforce that large metropolises are able of mobilizing. Trail maintenance, environmental education, and bush restoration are only a few of the tasks where willing volunteers can help. It is not only about work, however. Above all, it is about educating urbanites on how to keep the environment healthy.

In conclusion, it is a fundamental task of managers of urban PAs to turn the visitor into an ally of long-term conservation goals. As distinct from more remote PAs, where most visitors are familiar with national parks and therefore are more likely to be aware of the fragility of PAs,  urban protected areas are more likely to receive less-educated recreation seekers. Every recreational activity in an urban park should take the environmental education component into account. All management activities should be visible and should be explained in a didactic way. For instance, in the planning of a long-distance trail, managers should try to use it to link isolated patches of forests. The trail, consequently, could become a living educational instrument used to introduce and explain concepts such as narrow corridors, border effect, and so on.

In this sense, it is encouraging to see that the application of some of these simple measures can bring good results. Sydney, Australia, is one major urban center where such results can be easily perceived. There, even tiny local council reserves tend to be managed with great environmental care. Exotic species are visibly managed, educational signage is abundant, volunteers contribute with a fair share of the work, the public is called upon to provide their views on management processes, trails are planned to link otherwise isolated PAs, empty land is acquired in order to diminish edge effects, local and regional authorities coordinate their work. As a consequence, public awareness of conservation issues is probably one of the highest in the world. Nowadays, Sydneysiders (as residents of Sydney are called) give their support for the larger conservation objectives: Conserve 10 percent of each biome, save threatened species, create corridors, etc.  The results can already be seen: In the last two state elections, a Labor candidate won with a pro-conservation platform. His votes came overwhelmingly from the large urban centers. In four years in office, in response to this mandate, he created scores of new PAs, acquiring land for Pas and turning state forests into national parks, most of them in non-urban areas.

In Brazil, a handful of managers and NGOs are already looking in that same direction and are applying many of the concepts discussed above. Kátia Mazzei, former Manager of Cantareira State Park, situated in the heart of the city of São Paulo, has published an excellent essay defending the incorporation in Cantareira of all natural spaces that surround it. Since 1999, IBAMA, the national conservation agency, and the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro have jointly managed Tijuca National Park, with already-obvious benefits. In Niteroi, a major suburb of Rio, pressure exercised by local residents and conservation NGOs led to the creation of Tiririca State Park.

This change has only been possible because urban PA managers have stopped looking solely towards remote protected areas for guidance and examples, because the realities they faced are far different.

A good consequence of globalization is that, now, urban PAs in different parts of the world can compare their realities and exchange their experiences. Through this exchange, new and better ways of managing this unique category of urban protected area can be agreed upon. This certainly will benefit of the broader goals of nature conservation around the globe.

4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS:

It is of paramount importance that urban protected areas adopt a new paradigm. They should be managed according to their urban reality, and no longer as the “ugly ducklings” of PA systems. To achieve this goal, they should be capable of involving visitors, the press, and the public in general. They should be agile and flexible enough to be make use of all available government infrastructure located in the same urban area; and they should be geared to succeed in their unique environmental education role.

Urban protected areas are the visitor cards of protected area systems. They should demonstrate in a credible way the message that “a single standing tree holds more value than a whole forest logged.” It is a mission that can be accomplished.

Ten recommendations for urban protected area managers:

Understand that urban protected areas must be managed differently from remote Pas; but always take into account the fact that urban PAs are part of a larger system.

Recognize the role of urban PAs as a recreational focus (in this case, much more so than more remote parks). Have an extensive recreational program, but plan recreational activities to maximize environmental education gains.

Maximize the use of volunteer work and include in it a substantial environmental education component.

Establish a strong partnership with local government. Be prepared to share decision-making. Where necessary, create a new joint institution (between different levels of administration) to manage the urban PA.

Create a special partnership with local schools and the nature-related faculties of universities. Make sure regular curricular visits become a part of the routine of urban schools.

Make intelligent usage of idle buildings. Use them to attract relevant partners into the park (nature-related university faculties, headquarters for environmental agencies, etc.).

Prepare urban PAs to be on-site training grounds for new conservation agency rangers and officers.

Maximize fund-raising opportunities through responsible partnerships with NGOs and private enterprise.

Employ a press officer, and create a positive agenda with the media. Publicize the park and its importance to the neighboring metropolis whenever possible. Always emphasize to journalists that urban PAs, although unique, are part of a larger system.

Acknowledge that urban PAs are unique and must be managed differently from PAs in remote areas. Identify and exchange expertise and know-how with other urban PAs around the world.

I would like to thank Alfred Bernhard, Bushland Manager of the Willoughby Council (Sydney, Australia), and Ross Hutcherson for their ideas and comments, which were of great help in revising this article.

6. BIBLIOGRAPHY

In writing this essay, the author took into account the following reports about the state of some key Brazilian urban protected areas. These reports were prepared in early 2003 under the auspices of the Brazil Region of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas. On behalf of that Commission, I would like to acknowledge the quality of the reports and thank the authors for their outstanding efforts and personal commitments.

Borges Freire, Maria do Socorro. 2003. Parque Estadual das Dunas de Natal; Parque Jornalista Luiz Maria Alves.

Cunha e Menezes, Pedro. 2003. Parque Estadual da Pedra Branca.

Grael, Axel Schmidt, and Simon Alba.  2003.  Parque Estadual da Serra da Tiririca.

Langlois, Luiz Otávio Teixeira Mendes. 2003. Parque Nacional da Tijuca.

Mazzei, Kátia, and Márcio Vitiello. 2003. Parque Estadual da Serra da Cantareira.