Contribuições da relação entre comunicação e educação ambiental para a gestão participativa de unidades de conservação

Abstract

This article reflects on the relationship between communication and environmental education,
and bring the concept of educommunication, with a focus on participatory management of protected
areas. The communication between the actors involved in participatory management of a conservation
unity is pointed by authors as a challenge. Access to information, the meanings and remeaning of what is
communicated, and consequences of the interpretation and understanding of what is communicated are part
of the communication process. From examples of the experiences of implementation of educommunication
and environmental education activities in three protected areas of Southern Bahia (Corumbau Marine
Extractive Reserve, the National Park Discovery and Pau Brazil National Park), some communication
challenges and how they can be worked to enhance dialogue and knowledge’s circulation are presented.
Experiences show that it is possible to bring the concepts of educommunication for practices that permeate
environmental education and communication in protected areas. For this, we need to change the debate
not only on educommunication, but about what communication and environmental education mean in the context of participatory management. This advance is being made possible through public policies’s practice,
as the National Strategy for Environmental Education and Communication (ENCEA).