Revisão e avaliação de 10 anos de parcerias no Projeto Toyota – APA Costa dos Corais

Abstract

Protected Areas, such as Brazilian’s Conservation Units (UC) are part of an important and globally known strategy for protecting biodiversity and promoting sustainable development, however, these areas often lack support for their functioning. The establishment of partnerships with third sector organizations (non-profits) and private social investors can be a way to improve the implementation of these protected spaces. The Costa dos Corais Environmental Protection Area (APA) is one of these Conservation Units. In 2011, a project conceived by Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica and Fundação Toyota do Brasil was initiated to provide financial, technical and institutional support to the public agency that manages the UC, as well as to support projects from other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) with local operations. After ten years of execution, despite the production of periodic reports, a comprehensive assessment of the results and lessons learned in the period had not yet been addressed. This work aimed to carry out a review and evaluation of actions in that decade. Information from regular reports and other secondary data was gathered, a comparative analysis was carried out between the APA Costa dos Corais and another UC of the same category and similar management objectives, and finally, the evaluation was complemented with primary data obtained through questionnaires applied to CSOs that participated in the Project. The results suggest that the Project made an important contribution to the APA's management instruments, such as its management board and management plan, and to the UC's infrastructure and inputs. The support to the projects of local CSOs that are partners of the APA increased the scale of the results and the performance of these organizations in the territory. The partnership model with the public agency can meet the demands of the UC management with agility, which has brought better conditions for the work of the management teams. The partnership model with local CSOs, on the other hand, had to be rethought over the last decade for a more collaborative approach that went beyond project financing, with more attention to the institutional strengthening of these organizations. The lessons learned from this evaluation should be considered for the future of the Project, which will continue to use resources from a endowment fund constituted with part of the partnership's investments. In addition, it is important to continue the communication work of the partnership with Fundação Toyota do Brasil as an important case of investment in biodiversity conservation and to encourage the growth of similar activities by the philanthropy sector and private social investment