Research carried out by Instituto Semeia with the managers of 21 natural parks and 7 urban parks that maintain concession contacts, concluded that, despite significant advances in the qualification of the visitor experience promoted, mainly, by concessionaires, a more consistent effort is still needed to ensure that these units are, in fact, accessible and integrative spaces.
The conclusion of the extensive 69-page study is that it is necessary to go beyond the provision of quality services: it is essential to ensure entry policies that consider the socioeconomic diversity of the Brazilian population, adopting strategies that expand and encourage access to parks.
Of the total number of park managers, only 53% said they were satisfied with the actions undertaken by the concessionaire for local development and 50% said they were dissatisfied with the environmental education actions for visitors. The good thing to highlight on the eve of Children’s Day is that 76% agreed that private partners are concerned about offering attractions for children.
Furthermore, the study indicates that the private agent must be seen “as a true partner in the construction of identity, belonging and appreciation of territories”. And the concessionaires’ actions must reflect a deeper commitment to inclusion, equity and strengthening relationships with local communities, fundamental elements for partnerships to be recognized as legitimate instruments of public interest.
The research sent online questionnaires to contract managers from both the granting party and the concessionaire, over a two-month period between April 10 and June 14, 2024.
According to Renata Mendes, executive director of Semeia, who closely monitors the concession parks, a fact that draws attention is that “for 83% of respondents from the granting authority, the concession did not increase the time available for management and to deal with other problems of the units, which causes the problems to pile up”.
Bárbara Mattos, partnership structuring and management manager at the institute, also points out that bureaucracy, ultimately, is one of the biggest obstacles to conducting partnerships. “In the first years of the contract, which is where most concessions are operating, these are the years of greatest investment, but we hear from concessionaires that the real challenge is speed and the possibility of approving what is already foreseen in the contracts.”
One of the positive points highlighted by the two experts was the fact that, although there are recurring criticisms that concessions arrive and do not speak to those around the units, 73% of managers saw precisely this interaction as positive. “We hear a lot that the concession will elitize the space, that it won’t talk to those who are traditionally from that region, and this result appears”, says Bárbara.
Another element that denotes difficulty for concessions to obtain results is, according to the analysis, the lack of qualification of professionals and tools of the public authorities in managing contracts. “The problem is not with the park itself, but with whoever manages the contract, because it is not simply ‘assuming that the park is no longer the responsibility of the government’, on the contrary, the obligations are transformed, but they do not cease to exist”, argues Renata, highlighting that the fact that the research did not name the interviewees helped to create a comfortable environment for managers to talk about their problems in a more objective way.
“We had the challenge of talking about specific cases, and then either the concessionaire doesn’t want to talk, or the public authorities don’t want to talk”, explains the executive. “We pointed out that we wanted to hear the challenge that made sense to each person, what is missing, what could be better, and speak in a less sensitive way, breaking barriers a little, because it is a thorny subject.”
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