Challenges for community participation: managing an Urban Park

Developing a Management Plan for an Urban Protected Area, surrounded by poor communities highly dependent on the water supply of this Park (PMMC - Parque Municipal do Morro da Cruz), has been a challenge. Added to the intrinsic problems of the area, lack of literacy, drug issues, struggles between communities, lack of participatory culture (government and society), different park limits used by the managers, housing occupation, etc., the PMMC also lacked public space and access and the area had private use.

The Plan of Management team overcame the challenges by increasing the number of workshops foreseen, including participants of the communities and private sector in the participatory committee, decoding academic information into more suitable language, and taking in account all community claims. This process took nearly two years to be finished and the Plan of Management was concluded in 2011 with a great acceptance by all stakeholders.