Training of Community Environmental Managers to Mitigate Jipiro's Micropipe Contamination

Abstract

The solution to the environmental problems associated with eliminating contamination of watersheds is only solvable sustainably, when changes that are proposed to mitigate environmental impacts of water pollution focus on man consciousness, the citizens who live and work in that reality, interacting with it through their attitudes and behaviors, most of the time unconscious.

This article aims to reflect on an experience of community environmental education aimed at training Community Environmental Managers to promote critical awareness in the population to mitigate pollution in the Jipiro Watershed, Loja.

In this research, a novel methodology for self-community development (MAC) is applied, which by its participatory, emancipatory and developing essence achieves in the citizenship the development of critical awareness and promotes an environmental culture of the population under study. Various research methods are applied such as participant observation, surveys, interviews, document analysis and numerous group devices.

The transformations achieved at individual and group level in the group of environmental managers being trained showed a higher level of development of critical awareness and ownership of a system of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which are reflects of a instilled environmental culture.