This article examines the social conditions and the logic that bases the uses and reconversion of higher education for professional practice in the defense of environmental causes. The methodology consisted of biographical interviews with three different generations of activists from Rio Grande do Sul, focusing on their social origin, the meanings associated with the use of academic education in militancy, the main kinds of militant careers, and the types of resources and social ties that ground activists' practices. The research showed that environmentalism is a social space for reconverting school and university education into professional action in different spheres of activity, based on resources and ties established by activists with political parties, organizations and social movements in the course of their familial, schooling and professional routes.
militancy; education; professional practice; environmentalism