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Introduction: The Green Belt Biosphere Reserve, with 2.33 million hectares and its internal urban area with 220 thousand hectares, is configured as a water security territory and expresses a direct relationship between urban development and areas that ensure well-being and ecosystem services for 12% of Brazil's population. With seventy-eight municipalities that fully or partially integrate the GBBR, the socioeconomic differences and the different contexts of urbanization and governance reflect on territorial management at the local level and impact the environmental and regional sustainable development agendas. Objective: Based on a survey of environmental policies and correlations between economic and socio-environmental indicators on a municipal scale for the entire study area, this article assesses the level of development of the main environmental public policies and identifies the relationship between these policies and socio-environmental indicators. Originality: Although the Green Belt Biosphere Reserve is an area recognized by the United Nations (UN), the management of its territory depends on municipal actions that comprise it. Little attention has been paid to environmental management, especially in terms of public environmental policies and a broad and ongoing understanding of the conservation of this area. Results: The analysis shows that the different municipalities in the GBBR have different levels of implementation regarding Environmental Agenda. When considering the Municipal Plans for Urban Afforestation, Adaptation to Climate Change, Atlantic Forest and Solid Waste, only Guarujá, Mogi das Cruzes, Santos and São Paulo have these four policies in preparation or completed, while for 33.3% (n=25) of the municipalities, none of these agendas was developed, and a positive correlation was identified between the HDI and the largest number of implemented policies. Contribution: Large and medium-sized cities in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil, present studies addressing ecological patterns and processes, however, they do not address specific questions on the environmental sector itself, which this paper aimed at providing. Conclusion: As the Green Belt accounts for 72% of the volume of drinking water in all of São Paulo, the disparities between the municipal indicators analyzed reinforce the need to adopt the GBBR as a platform for adequate governance to integrate policies at different scales for sustainable regional development. Systemic efforts are needed, especially at the municipal scale, in order to carry out adequate environmental management of the GBBR territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preservation of the environment is one of the main social concerns of the XXI century. This includes finding alternatives that can provide future generations with an environment that permits the continuity of human life. The present qualitative study involved discussions about collective awareness of issues including environmental sustainability and the need to develop new ways to create targeted policies. Adolescents participating in the "Saber Cuidar" project were encouraged to understand the meaning and importance of environmental education, and the creation of a system of peer group environmental education was encouraged. This study was undertaken in a State school, southeast of the city of São Paulo, with the participation of twelve students aged between 11 and 12 years. Data were collected using interviews and participant observation. Four themes emerged from the analysis: ecological awareness, social transformation, difficulties with the implementation of the proposal, and achievement of the proposed environmental education. The main results showed the importance of environmental awareness during the educational process, and of encouraging the perception of students concerning the environment in which they live. The work revealed a need to build new types of interaction able to raise perception of educational and social problems, which might then favor constructive action to stimulate necessary social mobilization. The students who participated in this study were encouraged to pass their acquired knowledge to their peers, and to teach others about environmental issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O Parque Estadual da Cantareira (PEC) é uma Unidade de Conservação de Proteção Integral criada através do decreto n° 41.626/63, atualmente gerenciado pela Fundação Florestal órgão vinculado a Secretaria de Estado do Meio Ambiente. Possui 7.916,52 hectares e abrange parte dos municípios de São Paulo, Mairiporã, Caieiras e Guarulhos é um dos últimos remanescentes de Mata Atlântica, rico em mananciais e que abriga diversas espécies de fauna e flora ameaçadas de extinção. Por estar inserido em uma das maiores metrópoles urbanas do mundo sofre com as pressões provenientes de uma sociedade em expansão como: a ocupação urbana desordenada, despejos irregulares de lixo, caça predatória, incêndios e invasões de moradores do entorno para as mais diversas finalidades, que colocam em risco a integridade da Unidade prejudicando assim nosso objetivo maior que é o de conservar os recursos naturais oferecidos pelo PEC para as atuais e futuras gerações. A fim de minimizar a degradação o PEC elaborou o Projeto Cuca, uma estratégia de Conservação que vem agindo na comunidade de seu entorno através de parcerias com as associações de bairro e diversos atores da comunidade desenvolvendo atividades de sensibilização e mobilização ambiental e assim a conseqüente conservação desta área. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]