The Protected Landscape Approach - Centre for Mediterranean ...

The Protected Landscape Approach: Linking Nature, Culture and Community
Artisan, Mata Atlantica region. Protecting local cultural heritage and improving local people ’s living
conditions are important goals for the Federal Environmental Protected Areas (APAs) in Brazil’s
coastal zone. Clayton F. Lino
The Mata Atlantic Biosphere Reserve
Brazil’s first biosphere reserve, the Mata Atlantic Biosphere Reserve, was created in 1991 to
protect and link the remaining fragments of threatened forest areas within the Atlantic Forest
biome. It consists of a large corridor passing through 15 Brazilian states and incorporating
hundreds of core zones. The fact that the Mata Atlantica Biosphere Reserve was not designated
until 1991, almost two decades after Brazil had first established its national committee for the
MaB programme, meant that planning of the reserve was able to take advantage of many
conceptual advances in conservation during the 1970s and 1980s. These include strategies such
as ecological corridors, the creation of protected buffer zone areas surrounding parks, sustainable
watershed management, urban green belts, private protected areas, and community
participation in the management of protected areas. Moreover, in the 1980s, dozens of new
parks and other protected areas were created in Brazil, many in the area of the Mata Atlantica,
and these became core zones for the Biosphere Reserve.
The creation of the Mata Atlantic Biosphere Reserve followed a period of great social and
political mobilization in Brazil, linked to the re-democratization of the country and intense
investment in environmental protection. Public awareness of environmental issues grew during
this period, and people became aware of the problems of the preservation of the rainforests of
the Amazon and Mata Atlantica regions. Initially the Biosphere Reserve included only a few
isolated areas in the states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Parana, but the involvement of
environmental organizations, scientists and various communities in other states led to four
enlargements of the reserve, duly presented to and approved by UNESCO, until today the
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