Relationship between conservation units and the Brazilian environmental law: a case study in Southern Brazil

Conservation Units may be classified by Law either as integral protection or sustainable use nowadays. This law brings to the Government the possibility to categorize new areas according to its characteristics and purposes. The main goal of this study was to describe the state of art of the conservation units in Brazil and to discuss the different possibilities available nowadays to categorize a new conservation unit at district (Municipal) level. The case study selected in this investigation was Pomerode city (Santa Catarina State, Brazil). In this research we conclude that economic and social aspects should be considered with more intenseness in order to verify its implementation viability, mainly when the conservation unit under study shows private areas inside its boundaries. In most of the cases, no financial support is managed to pay compensation and the new conservation unit contribute by the end only for statistic purposes and not for the preservation of the biodiversity as initially expected