Brazil contains more than 14,000 km2 of mangroves, spreading along almost the entire coast. It is home to several species of economic importance, ensuring food security for many fishing communities, especially in the northeast of Brazil, where 80% of fishing still uses traditional techniques. It is also home to species that are in danger of extinction, such as the marine manatee, which has had its original distribution from Espírito Santo, south eastern Brazil, to Maranhão, cut.
To ensure the protection of Brazilian mangroves, the BiomaBrasil Institute signed in 2006 a partnership with the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), in a project to train public school teachers, using educational material that is highly contextualized and adapted to the Brazilian species and ecology.
Teachers Clemente Coelho Junior and Renato de Almeida then took the education program along the Brazilian coast, from Cananéia, on the south coast of São Paulo, to Pernambuco, northeast of Brazil.
In mid-2012, the program arrived in the largest Marine Protected Area in Brazil, the Costa dos Corais Environmental Protection Area, which has the main reintroduction program for Marine Manatees on the Brazilian coast. There were 7 municipalities, with 300 teachers from 66 public schools. Students and teachers adopted the Didactic Curriculum Guide “The Marvellous Mangroves of Brazil” within the classroom as well as field activities, forming very important networks for the protection of mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrasses banks, which make up the ecological connectivity.
photography@mangroveactionproject.org
Phone: +44 7825142655
