His younger brother was José Bonifácio Coutinho Nogueira, who became Secretary of Agriculture (1959–1963) under São Paulo Governor Carvalho Pinto.

They were friends of several proprietors in the area, including Manoel Ribeiro do Valle, who raised stingless bees and became Nogueira Neto's father-in-law.

[4] In 1954 Paulo Nogueira Neto founded the Association for the Defense of the Environment (ADEMA-SP: Associação de Defesa do Meio Ambiente), one of the first environmental organizations in Brazil.

[5] In the late 1960s he led a group of about 30 professionals at the Paulista Association of Biologists (APAB) who agitated for the creation of the Federal Biology Council (CFBio).

[6] In 1974 Paulo Nogueira Neto was appointed head of the Special Secretariat for the Environment (SEMA), and held this position in successive governments for twelve and a half years.

[4] He was the architect of the National Environmental Policy Law 6.938 of 31 August 1981, which established the administrative, legal and technical foundations for the federal Ministry of the Environment (MMA).

The objective was to establish a network of reserves in federal, state or municipal area that would preserve representative samples of all the ecosystems in Brazil.

At one time the commission went to visit the Amazon a few days after the governor of Amazonas, Gilberto Mestrinho, had said it was sheer nonsense to try to protect the forests, which would not be exhausted in 1,000 years.

[8] Nogueira Neto was twice elected vice president of the Man and the Biosphere Program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).