O uso público religioso no monte das orações do Parque Estadual da Serra da Tiririca, Maricá e Niterói, RJ

Abstract

More than half of the visitors to the Serra da Tiririca State Park (PESET) visit the Monte das Orações trail. Located in the Várzea das Moças neighborhood, in the city of Niterói, near the border with the city of São Gonçalo. Religious public use is not regulated, and its environmental impacts create conflicts between visitors, society, and the administration of this nature conservation unit. Public use can be seen as the interface between society and the nature reserve and is carried out through visitation. This visitation can have its environmental impacts exacerbated depending on the intensity of visitation, management capacity, and the environmental awareness of the visitors. Religious public use can be interpreted as visitation with a religious purpose. Environmental education is a process that can transform visitors, both to minimize the impacts of visitation and to promote the understanding and appreciation of environmental preservation and the defense of protected areas as nature conservation units. The study area has a dynamic spatial delimitation that varies according to the increasing presence of prayer sites. The research began with a documentary research method and later qualitative research through content analysis, involving a floating reading of documents and the exploration of interview notes collected from visitors. As for the spatialization of religious visitation, georeferencing was done through points, and data on visually perceived environmental impacts during visits were collected. The results include a series of structured tables revealing that the majority of visitors do not perceive the environmental impacts and, as a result, are unable to assess their impacting actions. The prayer sites were represented by a point cloud and categorized according to the stage of clearing development and the use of fire. It can be concluded that religious practice, although a constitutionally guaranteed right, and dependent on protected areas for its practice, should also be harmonious with environmental preservation. Visitation is primarily carried out by religious followers of unspecified evangelical churches. The spatial pattern of religious practice reveals an expansion of the area occupied with the successive opening of clearings (new prayer sites) and the enlargement of existing ones, increasing the degraded area. This pattern highlights the urgency of managing these areas in a way that reconciles their use with the conservation of the visited environment. Still far from a solution to the conflicts, this study provides elements for discussion and understanding of religious public use in Monte das Orações, PESET.