Navegar é preciso, educar também é preciso: as contradições teórico-metodológicas do Projeto de Educação Ambiental dos Trabalhadores (PEAT), no âmbito do licenciamento ambiental para atividades de E&P offshore.

Abstract

This study starts the discussion of educational actions designed for workers, under the environmental licensing process of exploration and production of oil and gas from the perspective of the theoretical methodological references of critical Environmental Education (EE). Even though research in EE in Brazilhas reached an elevated degree of maturity, producing fruitful reflections and providing basis for the elaboration of guidelines as well as normative instructions; even today, important areas of action and target publics of specific interests as is exemplified by workers allocated in drilling and production units and supply vessels lack a deeper reflection that questions not only the epistemological basis used but also the kind of educational praxis that is being constructed. In this way, this study analyses the Environmental Education Project for Workers (PEAT) elaborated by two large consulting companies, based in Rio de Janeiro, so as to evaluate in what way their pedagogical projects incorporate the principles of EE put forth by the National Environmental Education Policy. Critical points (contradictions) for the operationalization of the Project are also observed as well as the shock between conflicting discourses that look for material and symbolic hegemony in the EE field, by analyzing the discourse from interviews carried out with the main actors involved in the elaboration of the PEAT: the company consulting company environmental agency. As a result, we see: (i) a deficiency (on the part of the consulting companies) in incorporating the theoretical foundations of EE into the PEAT submitted for approval by the environmental agency responsible for the licensing process; (ii) inadequate methodological conceptions of the PEAT, with subsequent warnings from the environmental agency and (iii) the creation of a situation of incoherencies in which the environmental agency approves a written document (the submitted PEAT) and disapproves of the educational practices that this document propagates.