SERRA DO CURRAL SIGNIFICADOS E IMPORTÂNCIA DE PROTEÇÃO

Abstract

The Serra do Curral is a symbol, a natural, cultural and landscape heritage of Belo Horizonte since its foundation. And even before it was already a symbol of location on the roads of Minas Gerais. Besides this, it has an enormous economic importance, since it is part of the iron quadrangle and since the 1940s iron has been explored from its area. Thus, there is a pseudo contradiction between its environmental and landscape importance in relation to its economic importance, which has generated innumerable problems in relation to its protection. The Serra do Curral is protected at the federal and municipal levels in Belo Horizonte, but its mineral exploration continues. In view of this the present article seeks to demonstrate the importance of the Serra do Curral beyond the economic issue of its mineral exploitation using the inductive and historical methods, with documentary and bibliographic techniques. It has as its theoretical framework Pinder, Antonino and Silva who defend that the relationship of society with the landscape as a dialectical unit in which the roughness of the relationship persists. The conclusion is that the Serra do Curral is today a landscape that is losing its visibility and has been standing out as a viewing point - today of the city of Belo Horizonte itself - and of direct relationship with the natural environment protected by it, and that it is necessary to measure such importance in the economic exploitation of this heritage.