Although a growing number of investigations have considered the theme of environmental perception, few have focused directly on young people. The present study examines the perceptions of the local landscape held by students in fifth through eighth grades in the municipality of Igarassu in the Atlantic Forest-namely, Pernambuco (northeastern Brazil). To that end, students were asked to write an essay with the prompt, ''When someone talks about the forest, I think of….'' They were also asked to make a drawing with the prompt, ''When I think of the forest I see….'' Afterward, a structured interview (projective type) was conducted using six photographs of environments with different degrees of anthropogenic interference. The students were asked to order the photographs according to the degree of preference they felt toward them. In the majority of essays, it was possible to determine esthetic and utilitarian aspects of the forest, descriptions of its biodiversity, as well as the sentiments of the students in relation to the environment and to the necessity of protecting it. The drawings showed a large number of exotic elements, which may have been influenced by the current teaching methods that do not contextualize pedagogical subjects within local reality. In terms of the ordering of the photographs, it was observed that, for the students in fifth and seventh grades, the image of a less urbanized environment stood out as most preferred, while a natural environment was last in the preferences of students. For the students in sixth grade, the image of a natural environment was most preferred, while a less urbanized environment was the least preferred. The students of the eighth grade demonstrated satisfaction with images of an urban environment, while the natural environment represented by an image of the forest occupied last place in their preferences. This type of inquiry may be useful to environmental education programs, as our findings help such programs adapt their efforts specifically to the visions and expectations of their focal groups.Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.

Fish represent the group of vertebrates with the largest number of species and the largest geographic distribution; they are also used in different ways by modern civilizations. The goal of this study was to compile the current knowledge on the use of ichthyofauna in zootherapeutic practices in Brazil, including ecological and conservational commentary on the species recorded. We recorded a total of 85 species (44 fresh-water species and 41 salt-water species) used for medicinal purposes in Brazil. The three most commonly cited species were Hoplias malabaricus, Hippocampus reidi, and Electrophorus electricus. In terms of conservation status, 65% of species are in the “not evaluated” category, and 14% are in the “insufficient data” category. Three species are in the “vulnerable” category: Atlantoraja cyclophora, Balistes vetula, and Hippocampus erectus. Currently, we cannot avoid considering human pressure on the population dynamics of these species, which is an essential variable for the conservation of the species and the ecosystems in which they live and for the perpetuation of traditional medical practices.

BackgroundWe propose a new quantitative measure that enables the researcher to make decisions and test hypotheses about the distribution of knowledge in a community and estimate the richness and sharing of information among informants. In our study, this measure has two levels of analysis: intracultural and intrafamily.MethodsUsing data collected in northeastern Brazil, we evaluated how these new estimators of richness and sharing behave for different categories of use.ResultsWe observed trends in the distribution of the characteristics of informants. We were also able to evaluate how outliers interfere with these analyses and how other analyses may be conducted using these indices, such as determining the distance between the knowledge of a community and that of experts, as well as exhibiting the importance of these individuals' communal information of biological resources. One of the primary applications of these indices is to supply the researcher with an objective tool to evaluate the scope and behavior of the collected data.

Spondias tuberosa Arruda, popularly named as umbu, is native from savanna-like vegetation and widely used for medicinal purposes, however, the toxicological profile is not available yet. This study evaluated the phytochemical profile and acute toxicity and citoxicity of Ethanolic Extract of Spondias tuberosa Arruda Bark (EEStb) in hematological, biochemical and histopathological parameters. Female Wistar rats were divided into: control (C) and animal treated single doses of 300mg/Kg (EEStb 300 ) or 2.000mg/kg body weight (ESStb 2.000 ) of the EEStb. After 24 hours and 14 days from gavage, the behavior, hematological, biochemical and histopathological parameters were assayed. Cytotoxicity effect was evaluated on HEp-2 cell lines. Neither EEStb 300 nor EEStb 2.000 produced mortality nor changes in body weight during the 14-days of observation, but EEStb 2.000 reduced quietly the food and water intake as well as locomotor activity at first day. There were no changes in macroscopic, histopathological, biochemical and hematological parameters. EEStb in concentrations of 6.25-50μg ml −1 on HEp-2 cell did not produce cytotoxic effect. These results suggest that EEStb did not cause acute toxicity and cytotoxic, suggesting a good safety rate for Spondias tuberosa Arruda.

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