This paper is about social relations grounded in the realm of Reservas Particulares do Patrimônio Natural - RPPNs (Private Natural Heritage Reserves), natural areas protected by the environmental legislation on their way to be institutionalized in private domains. In this context, a new social identity comes up, the RPPNista, the one not only possessing private property of the natural site but also receiving and ascribing himself the right and duty of protecting it. By means of articulations, agreeings and disagreeings happened in the field of relations, the RPPNista community is formed. One intends to reflect upon the field of possibilities from which the RPPNistas' projects get structured and upon how, by establishing such a community of meanings, these individual reshape themselves, while they symbolically construct the owned nature as a private reservation.
sacralization of nature; RPPNista community; private reserve; protected natural areas; environmental preservation
