Developing geographical professional abilities: experiences in Egypt and Brazil

Sustainable development asks for solid systemic and territorial knowledge, abilities in new decision making processes and skills inrecognition and empowerment of local actors. Geography can supplì the challenge of sustainable development with theory and ractice. This paper dealswith the experiences of the author in feld work improving students with geographical knowledge and practices about participatory territorial (land use) management. Two examples are displayed: a seminar with students studying a degree in Development Cooperation held in Egypt in Novembre 2003 and a seminar “Citizenship, Territory and Power” in Salvador de Bahia (Brazil), in March 2004, with the degree students in pedagogy working in a community school. In the two cases geography represent an important theoretical and practical tool to work in territorial dynamics, for geography in education it is strategic and compulsory to go back to “the reality of territory”.