Patrimônio integral em perspectiva: reflexões a respeito do Parque Nacional Cavernas do Peruaçu e a comunidade do Fabião, em Minas Gerais

Abstract

The Cavernas do Peruaçu National Park (PNCP) is placed in the northern portion of the state of Minas Gerais, covering part of the municipalities of Januária, Itacarambi and São João das Missões, 653 km from Belo Horizonte, and situated on the left bank of the river San Francisco. The main access is via the BR-040 and BR-135 highways, covering 424 km from Belo Horizonte to Montes Claros, another 169 km to Januária and 44 km to the village of Fabião, district of Levianópolis, municipality of Januária, where the entrance to the Park and the ICMBio headquarters are located. The PNCP is a full protection Conservation Unit (UC) created in 1997 from an agreement signed between the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and FIAT. For the implementation of the Park's infrastructure, the company acquired 6,000 hectares of land located in the Cavernas do Peruaçu Environmental Protection Area (APA). The proposal to create the Park began in 1986, through agreements initiated by the State Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage of Minas Gerais (IEPHA/MG), with the State Forestry Institute (IEF) and the State Foundation for the Environment (FEAM). O PNCP was effectively created by IBAMA in 1999, with an area of about 56 thousand hectares, encompassing the main core of the caves (6,000 ha) and extensive adjacent areas with native vegetation cover of the Cerrado and Caatinga in a good state of conservation. In 2002 the survey of technical data for the planning of the Park began, concluded in 2005 with the delivery, to IBAMA, of the document Management Plan and Zoning (MMA/IBAMA, 2005). The region has a diversity of valuable elements heritage, consisting of karst reliefs, limestone caves and paleontological and archeological sites (MMA/IBAMA, 2005). The association between this set of heritages and the surrounding society promotes integrated interests, between the cultural and natural vision of the region. The community of Fabião is a small village located on the banks of the Peruaçu river, where the main entrance to the Park and the ICMBio office are located. Most of the residents who were expropriated in the process of creating the Conservation Unit started their lives over by going to live with their families in this community. This process refers to the idea of an untouchable and untouched wild natural world, impregnated by rational thought (DIEGUES, 2000). However, this idea of nature in its pure state does not apply, given the past occupations of the region and the management carried out by the local society in moments prior to the creation of the PA. The relationship between people and the environment is not a collection of isolated things, nor an external reality (CHAUÍ, 2000), considering that there is no separation between humanity and nature (ACSERALD, 2004). According to anthropologist Tim Ingold (1993), the landscape tells a story and constitutes itself as a whole, so that there are no gaps, projecting a known world for those who inhabit it, live in their places (BASSO, 1988) and transit in their paths, connecting them. Thus, the region is not constituted exclusively as a static space of nature, but as a dynamic place, marked by different events, moments, paths, and trajectories, collective and particular, which, when revisited, allow the understanding of the developments that lead to what it is today, identifying how the residents of the Fabião community interact with this integral heritage.