A construção da memória ambiental e a consolidação da Ecologia no Brasil (1944-1976)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the consolidation of the Ecology in Brazil, starting from the contribution of two national scientific institutions in the foundation and systematization of a certain ecological thinking, making a historical research at the National Museum and at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz. We defend the thesis that pioneering work in ecology were carried out at the mentioned institutions and that the researchers involved actively contributed to the consolidation and institutionalization of the ecological area in Brazil, between the years 1944 and 1976. This approach gave priority to the dialogue between the social history, environmental history and the history of science, by addressing the links between the social-political context of the First Republic and the Vargas period with the emergency of the ecological issues in Brazil. Subsequently, the decades of 1950-70 represented a period in which the development of ecological knowledge by scientists and national researchers analyzed in this study occurred in parallel to the appearance of environmental movements in increasing scale. Therefore, we call attention to the fact that the development of the Brazilian ecological thinking is related to institutional demands and its ecological diversity, while tropical country and with its own flora and fauna. As to the fact that the use we give to natural resources associated with social issues, is elucidator of a country possessing extreme social inequalities and always dependent on these resources. The weight of misuse lies directly on the part of the population most directly dependent on them, the most socially vulnerable. Historical studies on the environmental issue, linked to the different dimensions of scientific knowledge, only have to add the cognitive construction of possible articulations of the social process.