Educação ambiental em zoológicos brasileiros: práticas exitosas e ferramentas para conservação socioambiental

Abstract

The changes that have taken place in recent centuries regarding the role of zoos, from being mere repositories of exotic fauna for non-formal education centers to becoming contributors to the conservation of biodiversity, have allowed them to reassess their methods of action with a focus on animal welfare and their contribution to society in raising awareness about environmental preservation. The objective of this study is to evaluate the programs, strategies, actions, and activities of Environmental Education (EE) developed in Brazilian zoos, based on bibliographical research and on-site visits. Additionally, it aims to conduct a bibliographical review of scientific literature related to the role of zoos in biodiversity conservation. This work consists of two chapters. The first chapter presents a narrative review of the literature obtained from three databases (Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Scopus). We got a total of 293 articles, out of which 72 were selected after applying the exclusion criteria. These studies were conducted in 22 countries. It was observed that the number of publications has increased since the year 2000. Despite being a relatively underexplored research topic, there are significant works highlighting the importance of environmental education activities/actions in zoos for biodiversity conservation. The effectiveness of these actions is closely related to the quality of planning and materials used in the activities. The second chapter provides an analysis of the environmental education actions developed by three Brazilian zoos. To accomplish this, we combine documentary research methodology with on-site visits. The objective is to analyze the existence of Permanent Proposals for Environmental Education (EE) actions in Zoos, evaluate the implementation of these actions and their influence on conservation, and propose practical activities aimed at EE in Zoos and non-formal education spaces based on the observed experiences. The visited zoos have wellestablished EE actions, dedicated personnel, and their own experiences with well-structured programs and educational projects. It was found that all three zoos have well-established EE and biodiversity conservation programs, especially those zoos that have specific teams dedicated to EE