Gaia Scientia

6

Authors: Mauro L. Triques e Martin L. Christoffersen

Fossil discoveries bridge the transition from fish to land vertebrates ever more closely. Microevolutionary explanations for the origin of terrestrial limbs assume a continuous process of natural selection. Selective pressures, acting slowly and cumulatively on organisms and populations, were supposedly responsible for a gradual evolution from swimming fins of aquatic fish to walking limbs of terrestrial tetrapods. Using a cladistic framework, we argument that digitate fin-lobes were co-opted by evolutionary rapid chance events for walking on land. The monophyly of Tetrapoda, of the subgroup of terrestrial Tetrapoda, and the long time span for gaining ground, are not congruent with an exclusive scenario of gradual and constant selective forces. Punctuated and rapid chance events, acting on previous structures with a long history of stasis for swimming, better explain the rather sudden exaptations of vertebrate limbs for the novel function of walking on land.

8

Authors: Luciana R. Arrial

NOTIONS OF THE GOOD AND THE BEAUTY BASED ON BODY LIBERATION THROUGH FREEDOM OF MIND. This paper analyzes the aesthetic relations which span Socrates´, Plato’s, Aristotle’s, Kant’s, Hume’s, Hegel’s, Vygostky’s, and Edgar Morin’s reflections, in the light of the Theory of Complexity. I have reflected upon Environmental Education related to Aesthetics because it enables the production and the emergence of new senses, besides enabling different ways to look at, listen to, and feel reality by oneself and with others. These relations span cognition, body, sensitivity, emotion, and history at the same time.

8

Authors: Frederic M. Hughes e Samadhi G. C. Pimentel

HOMO SAPIENS: AN ESSAY ON CONTEXT AND NON-CONTEXT. In this essay we demonstrate some conflicting aspects of the relationship man/nature, focusing on evolutionary aspects, historical and socioeconomic factors. To define some parallels between the prevailing thoughts on the relationship man/nature, theoretical and practical conflicts, we diagnosed the possible resolution of the binomial man/nature. It is our attempt to externalize and bind synergetic contributions on these thoughts developed throughout the text, we show that many of the answers we seek today already have been answered or pondered. So, what remains for this change of paradigm to occurr? A new paradigm of moral and ethical responsibility and transvaluation of values.

10

Authors: Giseli Pazini e Rosa N. T. Jerônimo

ON THE EXPROPRIATION OF FAMILY SPACE TO THE APPROPRIATION OF ASYLUM SPACE IN THE APPROACH OF ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. The present research in the area of Environmental Psychology focus on the understanding of the appropriation of the space of the elderly with long permanence in shelter houses in the City of Criciúma/SC. Collection of data was done by means of half-structuralized interviews. The self-assessment of the elderly, the relations between elderly and the caregivers, as well as of the elderly with their families, were analyzed. An attempt of the elderly to construct a place of identity through personification was detected. Moreover, the study showed that the sheltered elderly did made an appropriation of the asylum space, because such environment does not substitute the same affective, social, cultural and symbolic bonds contained in their original homes.

12

Authors: Taciana Ziembowicz, José E. de Souza-Lima, Sandra M. Maciel-Lima

A STUDY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERCEPTION OF THE INHABITANTS OF THE HISTORICAL CENTER AND AMBRÓSIO, GAROPABA, SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL. This is a research on environmental perceptions of residents of two neighborhoods in the city of Garopaba, Santa Catarina State: Ambrósio and Centro Histórico. The theoretic basis used in the study was complexity and systems theory. The work tried to verify the approaches and distances between the theory and the environmental perceptions indicated by interviews with the research subjects. It was concluded that there is more distance between what was said in the interviews and the theory. Further analyses of the community dynamics require a higher number of research subjects, but the study provides the initial basis for a future environmental educational program for the social-environmental reality of Garopaba.

12

Authors: Roberto Naime, Cristiane Josuinkas, Karin Luise dos Santos

ENVIRONMENTAL REFLEXES CAUSED BY VEHICLES DEPOSITED IN REMOVAL AND STORAGE CENTERS OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSIT – RS. The deposit removal system and the State Department of Transit of Rio Grande do Sul was developed with two specific objectives: compliance with current legislation by implementation of a single tariff system and the removal and destination of vehicles in the state. Considering these perspectives, there is a need to manage these activities through Law 8666/93. With the implementation of this system, vehicles seized for traffic violations through administrative or judicial decisions, remain in the courtyards of the Centers for Removal and Storage of Vehicles - CRDS, until future destination. Many of these vehicles remain deposited for years, since their owners no longer are interested in rescuing them. This research aims to conduct an analysis of the perceptions of employees of CRDS on the environmental consequences produced by keeping the vehicles in the courtyards. To assess this information, a case study was conducted in one of the representatives of the System of Removal and Deposit located in Novo Hamburgo - RS. A diagnosis of environmental damage caused by keeping the vehicles in storage without any environmental planning was achieved. Within this context, it was possible to see that besides a poor legislation, an environmental culture stimulating actions for the sustainability of the activity is lacking. It is necessary to change that part of the legislative context to an operational one, making the reality of the system of removal and disposal of vehicles an environmentally correct activity, to protect the rights of future generations regarding the environment.

6

Authors: Martin L. Christoffersen e Maria Elisabeth de Araújo

Biodiversity may be approached at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels. Whole genomes are intelligent informationprocessing systems. We are progressing from a Constant Genome concept, subject to random, localized changes at a relatively constant mutation rate, to a Fluid Genome concept, subject to episodic, massive, and non-random reorganizations capable of producing new functional architectures. We discuss the demise of the gene concept, with particular reference to the Human Genome Project. We also question the undue reliance on the automatic sequencing of organic molecules for the understanding of the phenotype of organisms and of their genealogical relations. Under the molecular revolution the neo-Darwinian Genetic Theory of Evolution is inexorably giving way to a new, systemic, hierarchical, dynamic, organism and population-centered paradigm, Genomics or Phylogenomics. There is also much room for the expansion of microdiversity studies in the present to taxon and ecosystem-centered Macroevolutionary approaches in the full geological time dimension.

6

Authors: Fernando G. S. Ayres e Jenner B. Bastos Filho

THE EXERCISE OF LIBERTIES, THE BATTLE AGAINST PLEONEXIA, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION. In this paper we argue that Sen’s thesis according to which the development process necessarily requires the exercise of freedoms presents aspects of convergence with the thesis according to which pleonexia constitutes an obstacle for this process. We argue too that the theoretical refl ection on these themes can provide a better and deeper practice of environmental education.

8

Authors: Maria Goretti G. M. Castro, Aldo P. Ferreira, Inês E. Mattos

WATER QUALITY ASSESSMENT MANAGEMENT IN AGRARIAN REFORM SETTLEMENTS BERNARDO MARIN II AND MUNDO NOVO, RUSSAS MUNICIPALITY (CEARÁ, BRAZIL): A CASE STUDY. The drought is one of the main problems in Northeast region. Ceará State was the precursor of dam installation in this region to regulate the fl ow of important water courses, but diffuse contamination tends to change the water quality in this type of reservoir. The research focused on the agrarian reform settlements in Russas, Ceará. Water quality was analyzed by the Water Quality Index (WQI) and the Trophic Level Index (TLI). WQI was found in the range of good quality water, but the samples showed disagreement for color, chlorides and total phosphorus standards. TLI indicated that the dam’s recreation area was mesotrophic and oligotrophic in another area of Açude Grande. It is suggested the removal or mitigation of pollution sources as a fi rst step for dam’s recovery. It is also stresses the importance of monitoring the evolution of TLI.

10

Authors: Rodrigo Machado

URBAN PARKS AS SPACE OF CRITICAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE VILA GUILHERME - TROTE MUNICIPAL PARK, SÃO PAULO - SP This paper discusses the proposal of working the urban parks as privileged spaces of critical environmental education, through considering the concept of this kind of parks, as well as arguing the idea of critical environmental education, recognizing it as dynamic and susceptible of transformation, differentiating itself of conservative education proposals. After that, the text displays the Vila Guilherme – Trote Municipal Park, in São Paulo – SP. In this public space, environmental education activities were identifi ed and articulated in a way to observe its potential as a critical proposal and with a view to collective action. By considering the interview as source of evidences, the work discusses its results: the description of the educative actions tested and the understanding about these experiences from the responsibles of the park; an analysis about the referential built on critical environmental education. One of the fi nal comments refers the concern to the refl ection of those involved and the possibilities of this proposal.

12

Authors: Rosa N. T. Jerônimo

TRADICIONAL CULTURAL MODELS IN POSTMODERN SPACES: THE COMUNITY OF IBIRAQUERA (SC) IN A PERSPECTIVE OF ENVIROMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. The present article refers to an Environmental Science Master Course research carried out in the community of Ibiraquera, in Imbituba, in the south of Santa Catarina. The aim of the research was to understand the process of that space appropriation by the inhabitants of Ibiraquera, according to cultural traditional models in postmodern times. Focusing on the Environmental Psychology theories, a fi eld research with a qualitative approach was done, carrying out a case study of a sample of ten (10) inhabitants belonging to families that use traditional craft fi shing and subsistence agriculture. Data was mainly collected through the inhabitants’ report on their life histories. The main analyzed categories were Azorean cultural traditional models as well as the questions referring to post modernity and tourism. Results show appropriation of cultural practices related to religion, folklore, and cookery opposing to the post modern models which change the socio-cultural and affective space of Ibiraquera inhabitants.