**5. Discussion and conclusions**

Understanding the practices and assimilating the knowledge of social movements and organizations that operate within the framework of environmental justice in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia and Curicó, Chile allows the following two categories to come into focus: (i) the purposes of the socio-environmental organizations and movements, and (ii) the beliefs that support their actions.

In each category, the testimonies show that the demands of these movements are mainly connected to the defense of water and territory, the territory where they live but that they also inhabit. They are movements of hope. These movements and organizations have a commitment that is created and recreated in the search for their autonomy and by learning to live differently. They aspire to generate their energy and daily sustenance from their immediate reality. They share a resistance to the consequences of "development" and to the businesses that operate or want to operate invasive and environmentally damaging projects in their territories. Here, the defense of water and territory is one of social and environmental justice and protection of the ecosystem, which means "staying in the territory, but with a dignified life."

The socio-environmental organizations and movements have the characteristic of synthesizing, more than others, the values and demands that circulate in the concerns of social movements. Far from being total movements, and perhaps far from fully assuming cultural creativity, they encompass a diverse and vast horizon, and within them, there are those who do grassroots work in communities, in favor of a better relationship between women and men, between human beings, and with the environment. Sometimes with little or no resources, they manage to transform the life situation of more and more people. Without taking the limelight, sometimes anonymously, and by assuming values and practices in daily life, at a personal level, they manage, with optimism, to make transformations.

In Chile and Colombia, these organizations linked to socio-cultural movements respond to a particular historical, social, cultural, political, and economic reality. Likewise, work in this region focuses to a large extent on the themes of democracy, citizenship, the fight against poverty, human rights, and community development.

The new culture, a product of the emerging cultural shift, implies moving from goods to services, moving away from a quality of life based on material resources, shifting our patterns toward personal development and community services, and reducing energy consumption. For many, this means returning to a sacred conception of nature, the planet, and life, always linked to models of cooperative action to halt and reverse environmental destruction. The community of life implies assuming that one is part of something bigger. And that taking care of nature is taking care of oneself. This awareness goes hand in hand with building democratic, just, participatory, sustainable, and peaceful societies.

It is of utmost importance to investigate various manifestations of the emerging cultural change in both countries, in order to understand how the new paradigm is expressed, how people with creative values configure and see themselves, and what potential for transformation grassroots organizations have. Given the characteristics and the historical moment, our countries are going through in order to get environmental justice.

The reflections on the experiences of socio-environmental organizations and movements from social work open up new research and perspectives on environmental intervention and action in the communities is therefore considered relevant to delve deeper into the subject and to construct pertinent proposals that are coherent with their realities. Having some approximations to the experience's socioenvironmental organizations and movements in Chile and Colombia, is possible to understand important aspects to consider and incorporate into social work education and intervention.

Environmental leadership is assumed as a relational process, in which the subjects exchange knowledge, experiences, customs, ways of feeling and perceiving, and values, among others, in horizontal ways of feeling and perceiving, values, among others, in a horizontal manner (distributing burdens, powers, knowledge, and others in other roles), in order to reflect on environmental situations, to transform these same ways of relating between subjects and other environmental elements that are seen as situations environmental elements, and that are seen as priority situations in historical moments of the community. This means that environmental leadership fosters citizen participation in the recognition of environmental situations in the environment and intentional and well-founded action to transform their realities.

Taking into account the above, the construction of the environmental leader's profile is a complex process, with multiple aspects, types of knowledge (by its nature), methodologies and knowledge (due to its nature), methodologies, perspectives,

### *Experiences of Socio-Environmental Organizations and Movements in the Framework… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106282*

and conditions, among others. Only one way of contributing to learning or one way of teaching. Based on the results of the research reviewed the priority is training in reflection, exchange of experiences, organization reflection, exchange of experiences, organization, administration, coordination, dynamism, capacity for promotion, innovation, planning, execution, and transformation of environmental situations in specific contexts in specific contexts; broadening and complexifying the profile of the environmental leader.
