Non-formal Environmental Education for Local Sustainable Integrated Agricultural and Forestry Practices
Atila Torres Calvente*
Are we able to structure and disseminate educational methods and practices to amplify perceptions on food production and environmental protection, metacognition, abstract and critical thinking in schools and communities? Will children have, instead of large amounts of information in studying subjects and disciplines, the ability to comprehend interdependent life phenomenon, connection of variables that interfere on global, local environment; and more knowledge, experience and wisdom to make a transition from food systems and production processes to a more sustainable one? Can these processes of education better prepare younger generations to be challenged to face and disseminate agricultural production processes integrated to forestry? Although we do not have straight reasoning or answers to these questions we must experiment modes of education that might bring a holistic comprehension approach to the way our civilization has promoted land use and continuous natural resources exploitation over centuries in designing a conversion from land to large scale pastures. Only in Brazil we already have two hundred million hectares of pastures, one fourth of total Brazilian area, followed nowadays by yearly astonishing rhythm of five hundred thousand hectares forest destruction, at the same time partly converted then to thirteen million degraded pastures in the amazon. The picture in Cerrado is worse where we know more than two million hectares is destroyed every year with huge biodiversity loss.
This communication aims to highlight various non-formal holistic educational activities and agricultural-forestry production practices in urban and rural communities near Mata Atlântica forests in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. These activities were first conceived and tested in 1985-1994 in rural communities of Bom Jardim, a municipality of Rio de Janeiro (Simpatia farm), other regions, and then better developed and tested later from the year 1997 to 2014, in more than thirty schools and communities of APA-Petrópolis (IBAMA – APA - Area of Environmental Protection), a municipality of the state o Rio de Janeiro. It was possible to involve many sectors of society, local, state government and private institutions, churchs, EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Research Enterprise), EMATER (the extension department for agricultural techniques dissemination), the court of justice for children and youth (Educandário Princesa Isabel Foundation, of the Court of Justice for Children and Youth, at Lopes Trovão street, Serra Velha de Petrópolis), academia, many children from slum areas and farmers from Brejal, Caxambu, Secretário, Araras, Pedro do Rio, and followed by the local TV, press and newspapers; basically to disseminate activities as planting fruit trees, organizing vegetable gardens, introducing leguminosae species and planting thousands of different native trees around schools, in degraded steep terrains, around water fountains and rivers without the use of chemical fertilizers nor pesticides; interpreting paintings and sculptures to build parks and arboretum; evaluating causes that degrade water fountains, local creeks and rivers; conceiving and undertaking other non-formal educational environmental actions and practices. In this experience we found that there are multidimensional aspects of non-formal education that can also enhance children serenity and equilibrium and may be more appropriate to complement traditional school activities, as it brings more an approach to real life phenomenon and production processes.
In our project (Cacaio project), land use, agricultural practices, local environmental and social problems, pollution, and biodiversity were not treated separately; and children and youth, from urban and rural areas, had to interact to exchange beliefs and moral values about the kind of world we live in; to compare local reality and understand and evaluate the impacts of man frenetic intervention elsewhere on natural ecosystems thus creating an unsustainable and irreversible process of destruction, for example in the Cerrado biome and Amazon forests, as unfortunately Mata Atlântica forest has already been totally destroyed; and soils are degraded, rivers and environment are near chaos. The recent disaster in the Doce river by Samarco Co. is an example of the consequences of large scale production processes in mining sector that did not take into consideration precautionary premises. In certains aspects large scale production processes of commodities fo export and nelore cattle are converting large areas of forests, water resources and degrading soils no matter bringing profits to capitalist farmers but not considering externalities and intergenerational ethical environmental conflicts, nor irreversibility (CALVENTE and FAVER, 2010; CALVENTE, 2014, 2015; reports on Doce river at Regência, UFRJ-PPED-EDS, 2016).
Environmental education can be applied not only to look into production structures and patterns but also to increase perception of the consumption of more vegetables and products from the forests to avoid a diet restricted to fats and red meat, and so enrich nutrient diets, fiber, vitamins and minerals from vegetables, fruits and species from local forest, valuing the conservation of local Mata Atlântica forests. On the other hand children can compare, and feel inside their experiments sensible differences in land use, smaller family farms compared to large clear cuts, deforestation, employment opportunities, values of nutrition and, productivity between vegetable production and cattle.
More than forty small experiments in local schools and communities were undertaken in those years mainly in rural and peripheral urban poor areas (1997-2014) to also amplify abstract thinking and cognition, foster closer social interaction and cohesion through experiments engaging children and communities in designing those experiments. Non-formal educational methods may challenge social and environmental problems contributing to some metacognitive approaches in public schools, urban and rural communities where we find vulnerable children, disabled or even handicapped, and teenagers at social risk; and also a few of them who have had conflicts with the law because of their chronic ill family structures (CALVENTE, 2014, 2015).
Children were asked in group work to design and produce ideas and texts on interdisciplinarity, sustainability and ideas about the transition from clear cut of forests for land use in agricultural processes based in chemical fertilizers and pesticides to possible organic and integrated forestry-agroecology systems. Some local farmers living inside the PARNASO (Serra dos Órgãos National Park) near the road from Petrópolis to Teresópolis changed to organic agriculture, honey, shitake, mushrooms, and other products besides traditional vegetable production. They could also start selling their products in special markets created for that purpose. Farmers could observe aspects of decoupling in production processes through other forms of energy, work and combination of natural resources. So we thought on, reflected, interpreted, acted and evaluated together, more vividly, the comprehension of disciplines, theories and concepts, connecting them to local reality, environmental problems; and could focus on practicing a transition from conventional agriculture to a more sustainable one (CALVENTE e FAVER, 2010; CALVENTE, 1980, 1981, 2014, 2015).
References
· CALVENTE, A.T. e FAVER L.C. Políticas Públicas, preservação e desenvolvimento do setor agropecuário: uma experiência em Petrópolis – R.J. – in Prado R., Turetta A., Andrade A. organizadores, Manejo e Conservação do Solo e da Água no Contexto das Mudanças Ambientais, EMBRAPA, 2010.
· CALVENTE A.T. The Cacaio Project: Non-formal Educational Practices for Children in Public Schools. ISSBD – International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, Issue 2, vol. 38, November 2014. http://www.issbd.org/ContentDisplay.aspx?src=previousBulletins
· ______________ abstract on non-formal educational practices for children at social risk, Grant approved by the international committee, oral presentation, 8th WEEC World Congress on Environmental Education (Gothenburg University, Sweden, June 29th, 30th, July, 1, 2, 2015).
· ______________ The Cacaio Project: Education for Environmental, Aesthetic and Moral Development, Contemporary Aesthetics, support of RISD, 2015.
* Doctorate Program at UFRJ-IE-PPED-EDS. Member of UFRJ-FE- Laboratory LaPEADE.
Medium farmer in different regions of Brazil producing coffee, milk, cheese, vegetables, corn and beans (Simpatia farm, São José do Ribeirão, Bom Jardim, Rio de Janeiro; Santa Fernanda farm in Rio das Flores, Rio de Janeiro; Duas Barras farm, in Duerè, state of Tocantins; Murilo farm, Bom Jesus do Galho, state of Minas Gerais).
Assistant to Professor Peter H. May, at UFRRJ - Rural Education - LEC in the period 2015-16.
Atila Calvente