Analysis of social participation in the development of management plans in protected areas, from the perspective of environmental education

Environmental Education (EE) is a field of knowledge capable of assisting in the construction of management plans for Protected Areas (PA). By using its critical, dialogical and emancipatory bias, we can have EE activities that encourage the social participation of different actors in the participatory management of these protected areas. In this context, the objective of this research was to diagnose, by means of an exploratory bibliographic research, how this participation occurs in relation to the elaboration and implementation of management plans in Brazilian PA. We performed an analysis in a search database for scientific research and in a specific journal in the area of EE, and we realized that in Brazil, EE is uncommonly used as a subsidy to promote social participation in decision making, when we think about management of PA.