ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, INTERPRETATION AND ECOTOURISM

Since 1991 Physis organizes Ecotourism and Environmental Education and Interpretation activities, having built up a studies group and developed its own methodology and philosophy on this matter.

We've had many partners during all of these years. Since 1991, about 800 people/year participated in more than 180 trips with Physis.

Our elementary and high school partners have been: Logos, Soma, Equipe, Santa Cruz, Oswald de Andrade, Paulo Freire, Mackenzie, Stella Maris, Viva Vida (SBC), Waldorf - São Francisco de Assis, Instituto Eugênio Montales Anglo São Roque, Tijucussu Pueri Domus - SCS among others.

The under graduate and graduate ones have been (from courses like Biology, Tourism, Psychology, Physical Education, etc.): Faculdades Metropolitanas - FMU, Universidade de São Paulo - USP, Mackenzie, Ibero-americana, Faculdade Paulistana, Universidade do Grande ABC (UNIABC), Centro Universitário São Camilo, Universidade Anhembi Morumbi, Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Comercial - SENAC- CEATEL.

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, INTERPRETATION AND ECOTOURISM - INSTRUMENTS OF VALUE CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENT OF CITIZEN-PARTICIPATORY ATTITUDES

Our Environmental Education and Interpretation programs work with the assumption of changes in values: interior changes and of the relations among individuals and with the environment.

Our activities bet in the experiences people have with each other and with the environment, through the directed contact they will have with nature. We invest in creating strategies that may bring out personal and collective experiences while exposing people to their personal limits, fears, insecurities, successes and teamworking (assuming trust, solidarity and, affection).

We have activities for the time spent in transportation during our trips, to alert that the experiences gained in the visited places must be brought back and translated into our every-day life, aiming at the reconstruction and collective management of alternatives for our lives, not necessarily following a rational logic.

THE ECOTOURISM AS A PARTICIPATORY ACTIVITY

The professionals liked to the environmental area and to ecotourism have an extremely important role in constructing and practicing citizenship, specially the Non Governmental Organizations - NGOs.
We help with training people who participate in the decision making about the society's destiny and, because of that, must fight the passive attitude facing difficulties. We are agents trying to defend life quality.

Among other things, we believe that ecotourism must:

• Move away from an exclusively informative methodology and work more with values and feelings.
• Generate permanent benefits for ecotourists, the communities and the protected areas visited.
• Integrate ecotourists, community and the place visited, trying to get an effective participation in the search for the solutions for the many problems that must be faced.
  

Some examples of participatory activities with excellent results, developed by Physis and by its student and ecotourist public are:

At PETAR/SP: elaboration of direction signs, free course on Environmental Education in Caves for the community of Iporanga, planting native species trees, supporting the organization of the festivities of the Park's 40th and 42nd anniversaries, continuos participation in the discussions of the problems which affect the community and the Park, and the elaboration of a short film that brings up the cultural aspects of the community who lives next to it.

AT NÚCLEO PICINGUABA - SP: financing of part of hydraulic and electric installations. Theatre presentation of the Logos School Drama Group (GTL) for the caiçara (fishermen) community.

AT TOCANTINS/RESERVA DA FUNAI (Xerente indians) / COMMUNITY OF PORTO NATIONAL and MONTE do CARMO - TO: performance of a play for the Indian community, who also presented aspects of their culture to the students of the Logos School Drama Group (GTL).