Conservation Units (UCs) play a major role in protecting areas for environmental
conservation of socioeconomic activities and environmental conservation policies. However,
their continuity has been undermined, as a result of political initiatives, unavailability of
resources for conservation and in many cases, constant manager changes. The main goal of
this research was to analyze the process of (in)visibility of Integral Conservation Units and
their problems identified by the managers of Cantão (PEC), Jalapão (PEJ) and Lajeado
(PEL) Tocantins State Parks. For the analysis, data was used from the Management
Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) and the Discourse of the Collective Subjective (DCS).
The results pointed out, among other factors, similar problems between the parks. PEC was
the best evaluated, followed by PEJ and PEL, which obtained worse evaluations by managers
over the period from 2009 to 2019. Recurring threats were observed, similarly, in the three
CUs that hinder their management and visibility. Among those were the reduced number of
employees, the need for employee training and the lack of acquaintance with the parks by the
surrounding residents, issues mentioned by the managers. The records made between 2009
and 2019 make clear that the CUs directly suffer the effects of lengthy government actions
and the given priority of immediate situations to the detriment of others. The identified DCSs
show that managers share the same problems and concerns regarding the management of CUs
in Tocantins. Also, future perspectives of the studied CUs are unknown. It was clear that there
were external threats from the expansion of the real estate, agriculture, the flexibility of
environmental regulations and studies for the privatization of PEJ. Added to all this are the
social problems and impacts of UCs in local and traditional communities due to the way they
were formed. However, it was noted that the agency responsible for the UCs in the state could
not meet the time and not all the demands coming from the managers of the Parks. Finally, it
was observed that the monitoring process used by the state government had shortcomings,
which may indicate its indirect participation to the invisibility of these areas.
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