Environmental Education as an awareness-raising tool to reduce forest fires

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest once occupied more than 1.400.000 km² of Brazilian territory, but today 12.4% of its original coverage is giving way to anthropic areas, due to the expansion of urban and agricultural areas. Its remnants suffer from intense pressure, loss and fragmentation due to anthropogenic activities, such as: deforestation, pollution, fires, among others. The impacts caused by fires and fires in the Atlantic Forest are an old case, and environmental education is one of the tools capable of stopping and reducing this impact. In this sense, we analyzed visitors' perception of the fires within the Pedra Branca State Park and environmental education. The study was carried out based on a survey of visitors to the Pedra Branca State Park, using a semi-structured questionnaire with 17 questions, which aim to verify whether visitors have contact with environmental education and have knowledge about fires and forest fires and the impacts caused by these events, in addition to verifying whether there is a relationship between AE and knowledge about the events and impacts of fires. In total, 101 visitors were interviewed. After analysis, it was found that most people who have not had contact with environmental education are unaware of the impacts caused by burning and fires, either on the environment or on their lives, while those who had contact showed greater awareness of the impacts caused. Thus, as knowledge about fires is still very vague, this can be better structured through environmental education, providing increased awareness of the issue and contributing to the reduction of events inside the park and, consequently, the impact on the ecosystem.