Sociological research has become increasingly interested in the discursive forms and practices by which the so-called "environmental issue" is to influence policy choices and social figurations. It was analyzed the model of conservation undertaken by the creation of these protected areas on private farms. The social dynamics analyzed involved landowners, surrounding rural communities and the representatives of public agencies, addressed in this work in terms of the combined processes of environmental change, conservation policies and marginalization of social groups within the approach of political ecology. The field research revealed contradictions of this conservationist policy model. These contradictions are enhanced in the semiarid region. On the one hand there are policies which devise the environment as an element of only conservation, on the other hand there are policies that incorporate the environmental issue as one more element in development policy, and there are thus, the compensatory policies.
Development; environmental; conservation
