Current Analysis: (as of November 20th, 2002)

Why does any of my research matter? How does my work pertain to the overall mission?

1. Education/Training:

            As part of the public relations plan, our team wants to increase the awareness of the public about the environmental problems concerning the Amazon Basin Rainforest and about our Mission 2006 project. We have researched some existing environmental education programs in Brazil as well as proposed environmental training and education programs in projects organized by the World Bank. We have found that there have been extensive efforts in developing plans for environmental education with the goals that we have in mind. We can modify these existing plans to educate people about our project. The next step of our research would be to look at how effective these programs have been and look for possible areas of improvement.

Environmental Education Policies - This is an abstract of environmental education policies already in place in Brazil. The information is not complete at this point.

Environmental Education Projects - This is a look at environmental education components in projects already in place that are funded by the World Bank.

Education Evaluation - In order to get a better idea of how to plan an environmental education program, we will look at an example of how an environmental education program was developed, implemented, and evaluated using the Planning-Process-Product (PPP) evaluation model. The example we look at is a case study of an environmental education program in the Morro do Diabo State Park, located in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil. All the information pertaining to this case study is taken from the paper of Suzana M. Padua and Susan K. Jacobson.

Education Links - This is a list of useful links pertaining to the Brazil environmental educational system.

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2. Dissemination of Information/Media Outlets:

            Dissemination goes hand in hand with education. This topic involves the means of letting people know about our project and the environmental problems concerning the Amazon Basin Rainforest in general. I have complied a list of Brazillian television and newspaper outlets. Radiobras and TV Globo seem to be the two television outlets that are most accessible and most likely to aid our project. Radiobras is a part of Agencia Brazil and is responsible for dissemination of Brazillian government information. "TV Globo is the largest televison outlet in Brazil and has a weekly documentary program 'GLOBO REPORTER' on controversial topics of general interest that includes environmental questions. Other examples of environmental- friendly media outlets in Brazil are: TV Cultura (the program REPORTER ECO), the magazines Veja, Ciencia Hoje, and Superinteressante, the newspapers Folha de Sao Paulo, and Agencia Estado, and Globo Ciencia." (1)

            Besides disseminating information through traditional mass media, the internet serves as a great means of dissemination. I have found that Rainforestweb.org to be a very informative website about rainforests. We need to create a website that is accessible and comprehensive to the general public. One thing we have started to work on is a FAQ list.

            Dissemination of information on a more local level is also very important. Our team has discussed ideas about talking to indigenous people or training them as teachers. Mainly, we want interactions on a personal level as part of a good public relations strategy for our project. Possible ideas include visiting schools, holding town information sessions, etc.

Media Outlets - This is a basic listing of various mass media outlets that we can use to spread information about or project.

3. Interest Group Alliances:
           
            It is important that Mission 2006 forms alliances with interest groups that have the same goals as we do for the overall image and success of our project. It is also important to note the existing projects that these groups have already implemented, some of which are very similar to what we are trying to do. The key interest groups that I have identified are The World Bank/WWF Forest Alliance, Green Peace, and The Rainforest Action Network. Some of the programs that relate to conservation and monitoring of the Amazon Basin Rainforest are ARPA (The Amazon Region Protected Area Program), MAP (Monitoring and Analysis Project), and LBA (The Large Scale Biosphere-Atmoshpere Experiment in Amazonia).

Conservation Projects - provides more detailed information on the conservation projects mentioned.

4. Other Public Relations ideas:

            Our team talked about surveying public opinions or at least have a plan to figure out the general response to our project once it is hypothetically implemented. The reason being that the success of such a large-scale project relies on the cooperation of the government, which depends on the public opinion. Politics is a very large aspect of the public relations policy because we have to make the project appealing to the Brazilian government as well as the Brazillian citizens.

Source:  (1) Ministry of Environment. First National Report for the Convention of Biological Diversity - BRAZIL: Chapter IV Legislation, Policies and Programmes: Implementing Article 6 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, p179-181. Retrieved October 29th, 2002, from http://www.mma.gov.br/biodiversidade/doc/chapter4.pdf

5. Applicable US laws regarding funding for project:
            This is a side topic that I researched because another team needed this information from us. There exist laws that would allow the U.S. to fund a foreign conservation project such as Mission 2006 and it has been done for Brazil before. See National Energy Policy Act of 1988 and Global Warming in details.

Details: Research 10/21/02


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