Natureza e sociedade no Maciço do Pereiro, Estado do Ceará : um estudo sobre ambiente em Geografia

Abstract

The history and evolution of humanity has always been interrelated with nature, whether in its appropriation or interpretation. This relation has given rise to analyses that reveal that today's environmental processes and transformations are directly linked to the forms of social appropriation of nature and the relation between societies and individuals over time. In this context, the central aim of this research was to investigate the environmental construction of the Pereiro Massif (MP), in the Brazilian state of Ceará, based on the identification and interpretation of the natural components and the inter-relational process of the social appropriation of nature and its consequences. The research is a study of the relation between nature and society and has the environment as a concept of analysis which is pertinent to the object of study. As for the procedures for obtaining, processing and analyzing the data, bibliographical and documentary research was used, as well as a geocartographic survey and cartographic preparation, fieldwork, systematization of the results and the support of the dialectical materialist method, in order to interpret and respond to the processes of environmental construction. Based on sector studies and an integrative approach, knowledge of the connections and transformations of the physical-natural components of the Pereiro Massif was obtained; based on bibliographic and documentary research, historical and current information that underpins the socialization of the area was discussed; with the support of geocartographic products, the spatio-temporal dynamics of land use and land cover based on the relief compartments elaborated for the MP were discussed. The aforementioned results made it possible to infer the environmental trajectory of the Pereiro Massif, periodizing it and listing the processes and elements that characterize it. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, which marked the colonizing occupation and the Brazilian development of the cattle and cotton cycle, the MP suffered social pressures that brought about significant changes in its nature, above all through the devastation of the forests, creating an area with different characteristics from those when the inhabitants were indigenous groups. From the 20th century to the present day, the environment of the massif is characterized by the maintenance of productive activities begun in previous centuries and the decay of others, rural permanence due to the encouragement of public policies, the emergence and fulfillment of new productive objectives, always with the land as a source of support. According to the results, what characterizes the environmental construction of the Pereiro Massif is the process of social appropriation of nature, so that the social practices carried out have caused and continue to cause its continuous and dynamic transfiguration, resulting in deforestation, loss of biodiversity, exposed soils and consequent fragility, erosion processes and soil degradation. Without nature, the forms of occupation, the labor applied and the associated productive dynamics would not have germinated. This confirms that nature and society form a single interface, not just as the analytical scope of an investigation, but as a concrete reality, as an inter-relational existence. The conclusion is that the environment, as a key research concept, can help in the discussion of a given spatial context shaped by the relationship between nature and society. Finally, the analytical scheme drawn up on the study of the environment reflects the path taken by this research. Its construction is potential for understanding and investigating the environment(s), with the environment as a key concept.