Campo - Environmental Education Deptartment

The Environmental Education department develops its work through the Tinguá Center of Ecology and Citizenship (CEC Tinguá), located in Tinguá in Nova Iguaçu (RJ). CEC Tinguá's principal mission is to encourage and stimulate socio-environmental activities in Baixada Fluminense, above all aiming at the preservation of the Biological Reserve of Tinguá, one of the most beautiful environmental reserves in Brazil. CEC is located on an area of 25 hectares by 16.5 hectares that since 2002 have been considered a private environmental reserve (RPPN), it is the first in its municipality.

Campo, on April 27, 2002 signed an Agreement for Technical Cooperation with the Brazilian Institute for Environment and Renewable Resources (IBAMA). The principal objective of this relationship is the development of collective action to promote sustainable development of the Biological Reserve of Tinguá and neighboring areas. This agreement is monumental because it is the first time that an agency linked to the Ministry of the Environment has partnered with a non-governmental organization in the State of Rio De Janeiro.

Tinguá's priority is environmental education and this objective is accomplished by the participative management of the community through the following partner organizations: Associação dos Moradores e Amigos de Tinguá – AMAT; Associação dos Moradores de Rancho Fundo – AMRF; Associação de Moradores de Barão de Guandu - AMABG; Assembléia de Deus; Campo; Centro de Desenvolvimento Rural Integrado – Cedri; Centro Comunitário São Sebastião de Vila de Cava - CECOM; Ibama/Rebio do Tinguá e Associação de Pequenos Produtores Rurais de Tinguá - APPRT.

The Refúgio EcoTinguá consists of a lodging area with eight suites, a house with five rooms and a swimming pool, in addition to five horses and six bicycles. The resort allows the receipt of up to 24 visitors at once. By August of this year, approximately 600 individuals from the various groups that Campo assists, pupils of the municipal network of education of Nova Iguaçu and eco-tourists, including international travelers, have visited in an attempt to explore this rarely frequented region.

The Training Program of CEC Tinguá seeks to develop jobs and improve the local population's ability to increase earnings through sustainable agricultural practices, and training for the creation of cooperatives directed toward production of crafts, rural industry, and services.

The program offers courses directed toward production, services, the formation of professional associations, and an improved quality of life environmentally, socio-economically, and culturally.

The following list includes courses that have already begun and those that are being developed:

Environmental Monitoring, Gardening and Landscaping, Association and Cooperative Forming, Basic Accounting and Simple Financial Math, Orcharding, Horticulture, Fish raising, Poultry keeping, Beekeeping, Rabbit-keeping, Preparation of preserves, pickled foods, sweets, smoked foods, cheeses and liquors.

The objective of the project, Convívio Verde, is to develop environmental education in the area of the Biological Reserve of Tinguá. The project aims to achieve this objective by training teachers of the municipal network of education, including the environment in the daily lesson plan and activities, and creating the opportunity for the integration of activities between varied social actors of the educational community. The project offers, as a complement to school activities, Ecological Day Trips- hiking trails, recreational and educational activities, and a lecture that relates ideas learned in the classroom to the practices of ecology and environmental preservation.

In 2002, the project trained 150 professors of the municipal network of education, 12 educators of the local Sesc, and 50 communitarian agents. The project continued in 2003 with 60 schools from the municipality and benefiting from the use of didactic material and activities for pupils and professors.

The Convívio Verde is an initiative of the Biological Reserve of the Tinguá (Rebio Tinguá)/ IBAMA, in partnership with Campo and SESC, with the support of the Municipal government of Nova Iguaçu through the departments of Urbanism and Environment (SEMUAM) and Education (SEMED).

Thirty-nine middle school students from the Municipal School Rui Berçot de Matos, accompanied by two professors, participated on the ecological day trip (photo) of the Convívio Verde project, on August 11 at the Tinguá Center for Ecology and Citizenry (CEC Tinguá). The agenda included environmental education lectures, an 800 meter trail hike, and interactive games and leisure activities. The project was made possible with the support of the Unibanco Institute and benefited 400 students from ten schools of the municipal network of education. The project received support from Unibanco Institute which financed six of the ten Ecological day trips. Campo, in turn, assumed responsibility for the other four days. The schools chosen had not participated in the Convívio Verde in the previous two years. In 2003, close to 1,500 students from the municipal network of education of Nova Iguaçu had participated in the weekly guided hikes.

Middle school students from the Municipal School Vale doTinguá in Nova Iguaçu (RJ), in Baixada Fluminense, harvested five boxes of lettuce and three of cabbage in June of 2003 from the garden of the Agricultural School (Escola Família Agrícola) project. The Agricultural School is a pilot program in the Tinguá Center of Ecology and Citizenry (CEC) based on a partnership with the NGO Central of Rural Development (Cedri) and the Municipal Secretariat of Education in Nova Iguaçu (Semed). The objective of the program is to revitalize the agricultural culture of Tinguá, the rural area of Nova Iguaçu, and to give young people incentives to plant in their homes and become future rural producers.

The project was undertaken in May of 2003. In total, 60 students participated in the system of alternation: one week students attended school and the following week they put into practice (at home and in the garden) what they had learned. The youth learned several techniques including how to prepare the land, fertilization, planting and harvesting.

The address of CEC is Estrada da Boa Esperança, 1.050, in Tinguá, Nova Iguaçu. The telephone numbers are 3767-7789/ 96431571/ 9889-1155.