Protected areas on Santa Catarina island, Florianopolis, Brasil

This paper is based upon results from a doctoral research and expands the analyzing Protected Areas (AP) of the Island of Santa Catarina, in the city of Florianopolis. They have a diversity of landscapes, allowing for a vast array of habitats, but they also have the fragmentation rather than the connection among AP as a limitation, besides having issues related to management. The methodological procedures have been based on the mapping and characterization of the island's AP, with emphasis to the Conservation Units (CU). Maps of land coverage and use have been generated by using LANDSAT satellite images of the years 1986, 1995 e 2010. The analysis of the elements have identified the fragmentation of the habitats, where one can still find environmental corridors and possibilities of connection. As the final result of the research it has been possible to: diagnose the AP; understand that the urban area growth has been insulating the AP; and conclude that the AP have been discussed within territorial and urban planning of the city, but that there has not been integration between environmental management agencies at different levels.