This study was conducted in two rural communities in Santa Cruz-RN city, in order to verify the representations of the local population about the importance, conservation and changes of C vegetation in the semiarid Northeast of Brazil. The fieldwork was carried out between the months of March to May 2015. During this period, semi-structured interviews were conducted with representatives of each family. Aiming to extract memory of one last further, the survey was conducted with residents present in the two communities that had an age range of at least 50 years and keeping fixed residence there for at least forty years. Of the respondents, most said they see the caatinga as the environment where they live in and ensure their livelihood, also stated that over time the environment changes introduced considerable in the landscape, such as reduction of vegetation and places showing desertification characteristics, also reported that the main causes for this event was due to the practice of agriculture and the reduction of rainfall in region. With this, we saw that community residents see themselves as the leading causes of degradation in the locality.
