The Environmental education as a development factor: a look at the panorama of traditional knowledge of the Ekovongo-Bié community / Angola

Abstract

Like other indigenous communities in Angola, Ekovongo and the Ovimbundu communities in general are traditionally engaged in agriculture; being an agrarian community, one of the big problems that affect its development in the last decades is related to the low yield that the land has been showing in terms of the results of the productive activity, as a consequence of burning and cutting of large extensions of forests for the charcoal production that is destined for commercialization in the city. As part of a study carried out in a rural community on Education and Development in the Ovimbundu Communities of Angola: Ethnographic Study of the Ombala Ekovongo Community, the present work is dedicated to environmental issues. It was intended, on the one hand, to scrutinize some theoretical-conceptual foundations of the man-nature relationship in order to understand the current environmental crisis; problematize the neoliberal development model, which in its entirety leads people to engage in aggressive actions against the environment in search of means of survival, and the excessive exploitation of natural resources by companies in the name of economic growth and consumption. On the other hand, to analyze the social representations of the inhabitants of the Ekovongo community around the environmental issue, to identify the traditional knowledge regarding the relationship that exists between humans and other beings of nature as a factor of development.