The transformations in the environment as a result of the industrialization of Rio de Janeiro gave way to the consolidation of Complexo da Maré that was the result of resistances and reinventions for the occupation of this territory. The main objective of the research is to understand what the residents of Maré think about the environment in the favela and what relationships they experience from these reinventions. From this perspective it is possible to identify local knowledge that can give subsidies to environmental education in these favelas. The research was built from a network of partnerships and exchanges that I have been experimenting in Maré since 2011 with the Muda Maré extension project from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. About the methodology, observations were made in four favelas of the complex, eight semi-structured interviews and analyzes of four documents relevant to the research theme. Whereas that the literature on environmental education in favelas is poorly developed, this study approach to the Environmental Justice and Environmental Racism to understand how social movements guide the environment as a basic right of the population. Generative themes and popular education are also foundations used to understand environmental education in non-school contexts. Another line of reflection is the ecology of knowledge that proposes the horizontal dialogue between different knowledge. The research resulted in content that identifies some proposals for transformative processes that give light to the development of this debate about environmental education in favelas.