Educação ambiental, eticidade e sustentabilidade em unidades de conservação: um estudo sobre o ecoturismo no caso do Parque Estadual do Rio Doce/MG

Abstract

The creation of public parks, established as Conservation Units (CUs), represents an advance in environmental legislation, in order to preserve natural ecosystems of great ecological relevance and scenic beauty, as stated in art. 11, of Law 9,985/2000. This environmental institute aims to guarantee the maintenance of biodiversity, protect the remaining areas and, therefore, maintain biodiversity and ecosystem services essential to life. In this sense, this article analyzes whether the Rio Doce State Park/MG, by developing the practice of ecotourism, can be read as a non-formal instrument for promoting environmental education, in line with the provisions of art. 2nd of Law 9,795/99, encouraging the construction of environmental ethics to the detriment of the anthropocentric paradigm. As a hypothesis, it is argued that environmental education is not limited to the insertion of formal teaching tools, with the inclusion, in the curriculum, of content that deals with the construction of ethics and the use of sustainable management of natural resources. Thus, ecotourism, promoted in fully protected UCs, as occurs in the case of the aforementioned park, proves to be an informal but effective tool for the integration of ethics, sustainability and environmental education for present and future generations, taking into account the precepts of art. Article 2 of Law no. 9795/1999. Finally, the methodology used in the present study is based on descriptive, bibliographic and interdisciplinary research, combined with a case study, with qualitative data analysis.