Habitats, habits, inhabitants: a critical Environmental Education reading in rural communities in the Cerrado-Pantanal

Abstract

This article examines the relationships between environmental transformations and cultural dynamics in rural communities located in the Cerrado-Pantanal, a biogeographic transition region in the municipality of Poconé, Mato Grosso. Drawing on the perspective of critical Environmental Education and the triad habits-habitats-inhabitants, we seek to understand how the expansion of agribusiness over these territories has pressured the ways of life, identities, and cultural expressions of quilombola, traditional, and rural settlement communities. The methodology used was the Social Map, which privileges the self-narratives and self-denomination of social groups, through fieldwork, social mapping seminars, educational processes, and interviews. The results indicate that impacts such as deforestation, river silting, indiscriminate use of pesticides, and suppression of native fauna and flora are causing significant changes in the culture of these communities, expressed in the reduction of traditional festivals, the weakening of natural medicine practices, changes in food habits, and the loss of ancestral knowledge. Understanding these transformations is also a political gesture of resistance and defense of life in rural territories.