Impacts of public use and research activities on the trails of the Zoobotanical Park of Federal University of Acre

Abstract

The trails of the Zoobotanical Park of the Federal University of Acre are used by researchers, teachers and students in teaching, research and extension activities and by the community in general in guided visits. Thus, this work aimed to identify the impacts of research and public use activities on the trails of the Zoobotanical Park. For this, the Main Trail, Estrada de Seringa and other Secondary Trails were mapped using precision GPS. The widths of all trails were also taken and the factors that had the greatest impact on their course were identified. Currently, the Zoobotanical Park has 8,058m of open trails inside. The Main Trail (5.52 m) was wider than the Estrada de Seringa (1.38 m) and other Secondary Trails (1.61 m). The main damages found on the Main Trail were trees injured by blows or markings (24%) and garbage (22%). On the Estrada de Seringa and other secondary trails, the greatest findings were the presence of garbage (52%) and residues from research experiments (28%). Thus, we conclude that public use and research activities negatively impact the PZ trails with respect to the residues left by users as well as those from experiments left in loco without proper disposal.