Environmental Education Policies:
        The following text is taken from the 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. The original language is preserved here so that I can evaluate the effectiveness of the policies later.

• Environmental Education is included as one of the principles and aims within the National Policy for the Environment (Law No. 6,938/1981).
• The Federal Constitution is explicit in defining environmental education as a State obligation.
• The National Curriculum proposes the inclusion of themes such as environment. The environmental theme deals with natural elements, physical and social factors, and the concepts of sustainability, diversity and values and attitudes. These measures, taken by MEC (the Ministry of Education and Sport), local governments and society combined, will contribute to the fulfilment of Article 13 of the CBD (Convention of Biological Diversity).
• Constitutional Article 225 states that "both the Government and the community shall have the duty to defend and perserve it [an ecologically-balanced Environment] for present and future generations".

1. The National Programme for Environmental Education - PRONEA

• PRONEA has seven main courses of action:

• Environmental education via formal education
• Education in environmental management
• Specific environmental education campaigns for the users of natural resources
• Co-operation and integration of communities on behalf of environmental education
• Co-operation within and between institutions
• Creation of a network of centers specialised in environmental education, including universities, technical colleges and information centers throughout the country

• The MEC and the MMA are responsible for coordinating the establishment of PRONEA. IBAMA will participate actively.
• PRONEA was approved on December 21st, 1994.

• PRONEA is baed on five principles:
• As Environmental Education is a constitutional duty attributed to the State, it requires the joint effort of the Union, the states and the municipalities.
• Besides being the global beneficiary of environmental education, the community should become an essential partner of the State in the promotion of educational action and in directing social conscience toward environmental perservation for present and future generations.
• The main aim of environmental education should be to develop an integrated understanding of the environment in its multiple and complex relations, involving physical, biological, social, polititcal, economic, cultural, scientific and ethical aspects.
• Environmental perservation is to ensure the natural assets are used with responsibiity and conscious of the present and future rights of humanity.
• The encouragement of a single consciousness between the country's regions and between the country and the international community.
• PRONEA is based on two perspectives:
• Making environmental education in schools, for present and future generations, less basic in its approach and more systematic.
• Improvements in effective environmental management, with the development of a public conscience or the production of information suited for the various segments of society. The aim is to reach the three segments that will have particular influence on the success of the Program, which are the decision -makers, the users of natural resources, and those who work in the field of communication.

• PRONEA is an attempt to improve coordination between the National Environment System (SISNAMA) and the Education System
• Past research showed that most of the Brazilian population do not relate the current Brazilian developmental models with the environmental degradation widespread in the country. Environmental education is generally included in the physical and biological sciences, focusing essentially on nature, and fails to incorporate social, cultural and economic dimensions. Its teaching is limited by the small amount of research in this area, particularly from a theoretical-methodological point of view, as well as by the absence of teacher training and the lack of coordination between government agencies.
  

2. The National Environment Fund - FNMA

• The FNMA has supported various initiatives in environmental education, including training courses, environmental awareness campaigns, publications and promotional material (videos, booklets, books, periodicals, information leaflets and audio-visual material).
• The FNMA has mainly collaborated with government institutions (universities, research institutes, state environmental organizations, municipalities), and non-profit making NGOs, throughout the country.
• From 1989 to 1997, the FNMA has supported 533 projects. Of which, 153 have been in environmental education.

Source: 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. (P. 177-179)
                  

Examples of Environmental Education in the Brazilian Agenda 21:
        The exact languague is again perserved from Objective 15 and 16 of the Brazillian Agenda 21.

1. The Brazilian Agenda 21

• On preserving the quantity and improve the quality of water in the hydrographic basins
  
• To channel a big environmental education programme in the Northeast by mobilising big producers, public companies, local governments and communities, especially the ones living in the margins in critical points around the “São Francisco” river and developing in the population the perception of a narrow relationship between deforestation, loss of water and desertification.
• To promote the environmental education, mainly of children and youngsters, in the urban centres as far as the consequence of water waste is concerned. Schools and the media are privileged partners in the implementation of this action.

• Exemplary Actions in Threatened Biomass 
• To educate the local populations making them aware of the importance of preserving the biomass and, at the same time, to offer them options for subsistence and opportunities to improve their quality of life. To encourage the transition from extractable activities to environmental services activities. To stimulate the local communities to be the main beneficiaries of preservation activities.
• To incorporate the Amazon to the national community by preserving its forest and by guaranteeing its sustainable development by stimulating the plantation of forests and agricultural and timber activities in degraded forest areas, with the help of financing from regional banks.
• To implement programmes of biodiversity corridors in every biomass with representatives from all the big bio-geographic subdivisions of the regions.
• To develop conservation projects of the same conceptual and geographic scale of the big infrastructure projects being propagated by the federal government. To condition the implementation of infrastructure projects to those, which are incorporated in conservation, projects and which may show sustainability in the regional and national biodiversity preservation.