Percepção em movimento: análise das transformações em Galinhos/RN à luz da implementação dos parques eólicos

Abstract

In the face of growing energy demand and environmental crisis situations, alternatives have been formulated to produce clean energy. In this context, wind energy emerges as one of the most potent alternatives for Brazil and for Rio Grande do Norte. However, despite the arguments favorable to the installation, it does not prevent conflicts being fought in the territory. In Rio Grande do Norte, one of the major expressions of this conflictive dynamics was the municipality of Galinhos in the implementation of the wind farms, leading civil society to organize the 'Embracing the Dunes' movement, where it was questioned the allocations of the towers in the dune complex in a Permanent Preservation Area. There, the natural landscape and the maintenance of tourism and fishing activities were interwoven. The case of Galinhos, together with the recommended bibliographical references, has given us the understanding that the environmental justifications for the expansion of this energy should not be limited to the renewable issue or the low emission of carbon dioxide, but must also be established in the territory, from the moment of its insertion. Thus, in order to understand the dynamics that circumscribe wind power, we ask the question: how do the population experience these wind farms? Thus, perception and environmental perception are the basic categories for this investigation. The objective of this research was to investigate the perception of residents of Galinhos on wind developments and the identification of the associations made between wind energy and the environment from the perspective of environmental perception, based on a qualitative methodological design using semi-structured interviews, daily and photographs as instruments for the composition of narratives. The results point us towards an acceptance of energy, although negative considerations are made regarding the non-use of this energy source in the territory itself and the transformations in the dunes. This latter aspect is central to the construction of the environmental perception of the interviewees, so that the associations between wind energy and the environment were commonly negative or conditioned, thus concluding that the environmental justifications advocated as clean energy are not assimilated by the residents to the detriment of other socioenvironmental problems and conflicts that arise in the light of their implementation.