ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN PANDEMIC TIMES: ENGAGEMENT OF ARTISANAL FISHERMEN IN WATER AND FISH GOVERNANCE

This article analyzes the engagement of artisanal fishing communities, covered by the Pescarte Environmental Education Project, in the search for their rights, access to the territory and social reproduction. The PEAs configure a potential for building the bases for the exercise of social control in the elaboration and execution of public policies; it is a mitigation measure required by the federal environmental licensing, conducted by IBAMA. In this excerpt, we highlight the adoption of digital ethnography in the development of research in the context of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The methodology has a qualitative approach, of the case study type, based on the action-research technique. Among the results, the research has identified, albeit in an incipient way since the project is in the third of the six planned phases, the strengthening of the social organization and engagement of the fishing community in the spaces of discussion in the search for their rights and in decision-making arenas focused on governance of waters and fisheries. In the pandemic period, educational action can only be carried out due to the offer by socio-environmental educators, in the previous phase of the project, of training in digital literacy to fishing communities in the ten municipalities covered by PEA Pescarte, and, by guaranteeing access to information technologies to the Subjects of Educational Action – SAEs. The concertation between field-research enabled participation interfaces and online access by SAEs to channels and government entities such as: vocalization in public hearings; follow-up and inclusion in plenary composition or technical chambers and intersectoral forums that dialogue with the demands of fishing. On an ongoing basis, it has provided the exercise of social organization practices for the elaboration and implementation of Work and Income Generation Projects, indispensable for the emancipation of these subjects, the main objective of the educational action.