Management plan is a technical document that establish zoning and rules that will define the protect area usage and its natural resources management. In 1979 they were legally established in Brazil aiming to adapt and orientate the ecological handling of national parks, which are still not fully implemented. This indicates the necessity of carrying out the zoning as a base to the protected territory planning. However, preparation and implementation process of this document was extremely varied and suffered several modifications aiming its improvement. The objective of this work was to analyze the evolution of management plans in the context of national parks management, analyzing as a concrete case its implementation in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The preparation of management plans for Brazilian parks was marked by the existence of three different methodological references that was reflected in the variety of plans identified for five national parks studied here (Itatiaia NP, Serra dos Órgãos NP, Tijuca NP, Serra da Bocaina NP and Restinga da Jurubatiba NP). As a general pattern, the plans were neither prepared nor revised with the periodicity established by the legislation. This shows a difficulty in the implementation of this instrument even almost thirty years after its institution.
Management plan; National park; Protected area
