Emblematic Coastal and Marine Environmental Education Projects in Brazil

Abstract

Aiming to briefly present and discuss examples of Coastal and Marine Environmental Education (CMEE) in Latin American Countries, six emblematic Brazilian projects were selected according to six different categories: (a) Traditional Populations as social actors, represented by Tamarzinhos Project; (b) Charismatic Species, Golfinho Rotador Project; (c) Rocky shore Ecosystems, Underwater Marine Trail Project; (d) Simulacrum, Paraíba Marine Aquarium; (e) Marine Ecotourism Product, ProMar Project; and (f) Marine Sciences Courses in Public Schools, graduate Program in Marine Sciences applied to teaching. Although these successful projects target at diversified publics and present different methodologies, their main objective is to promote changes in values, attitudes, behaviors, and postures to transform and emancipate people. The analysis of the projects allowed to conclude that: (a) they cannot count on medium and long-term financial support, but when they have funding it proved to be quite effective to propitiate good results; (b) the teams involved in the projects are not always multidisciplinary in face of their high-cost maintenance; (c) all projects present regular qualitative and/or quantitative evaluations; (d) the main difficulties were always related to financial support, and funding obtained from private sector has been the solution sought to face these difficulties. Despite all the difficulties found, the CMEE projects analyzed have been satisfactorily developed, mainly due to the commitment of their idealizers.