Students' Perception of Urban and Rural Environmental Protection Areas in Pernambuco, Brazil

Abstract

This research assessed the relationship between students' perceptions and socioeconomic factors in urban and rural communities surrounding Atlantic rainforest protection areas in Pernambuco, Brazil. We tested whether the utilitarian concept of forests has a determining role in the student community's perception of protected areas. The study was conducted in eight schools in communities surrounding three protected areas, through questionnaires for 410 middle and High school students. The majority of students highlighted the utilitarian importance of forests, but approximately 60% of students did not answer the question regarding the importance of protected areas, displaying a disconnection between perceptions of forests and of protected areas. The students' environmental perception index was significantly different between rural and urban zones, but in both zones, on average, protected areas had a positive utilitarian importance, exclusively related to the protection of nature. Negative aspects of the students' perceptions of protected areas were related to social problems such as lack of law enforcement and land expropriation. Schooling and residence setting had a small (6.7%) but significant influence on student perception. Our results indicate that environmental managers in protected areas need to promote meaningful interaction with student communities from rural and urban settings, to increase the efficiency of these areas and to conserve biological diversity.

Positive Rules Can Lead to Positive Behaviours: Students’ Perceptions of Messages on Information Boards in Protected Areas

“…The research findings confirm the results of previous studies (e.g. [19]) that the majority of school students do not possess sufficient knowledge about the meaning of protected areas in nature. Some confuse them with city parks and other areas that are clearly not established for the purpose of nature conservation.…”

“…Ferreira [18] stated that the environmental integrity of many urban protected areas in developing countries is at risk and sees the opportunity in reaching out to people living close to them to spread the conservation message. Bent-Silva et al [19] reported that approximately 60% of Brazilian middle and high school students from schools in communities near protected areas did not answer the question regarding the meaning of protected areas.…”

Local Knowledge and Conservation Priorities of Medicinal Plants near a Protected Area in Brazil

“…The positive influence of age on the knowledge of medicinal plants that we detected in our research was also recorded in several studies [10, 11, 14, 36]. Such a finding was expected, as older people are likely to have more time to accumulate life-long experiences.…”

Multidisciplinaridade da percepção ambiental aplicada às relações homem-natureza: Revisão sistemática

“…Welle & Kating (2018) acreditam que as políticas ambientais dos Estados Unidos da América abrem precedentes de prejuízos irreversíveis à natureza, provavelmente não sendo essa a principal motivação para estudos da causa ambiental, porém é um bom pretexto. O Brasil vem em segundo lugar no número de publicações, sendo um dos países possuidores de maior biodiversidade do mundo, este também é um país de grande sociobiodiversidade, endente-las e protege-las seria a maior motivação em estuda-las na perspectiva da percepção ambiental, sendo uma temática amplamente discutida na criação de políticas públicas, elaboração de planos com práticas voltadas para a educação ambiental, gestão ambiental e valorização do conhecimento popular tradicional, conforme apresentado e defendido por Rodrigues et al (2012), Pellier et al (2014), Bener et al (2014), Bento-Silva et al (2015, Dictoro et al (2017) e Oliveira et al (2017). Isto leva a reafirmar a multi, inter e transdisciplinaridade que envolve as pesquisas relacionadas ao tema, fato também observado por Vasco & Zakrzevski (2010).…”