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Publications
Environment Australia, January 1999
The 1997 UNESCO Statement 'Educating for a Sustainable Future: A transdisciplinary vision for concerted action' states:
'It is widely agreed that education is the most effective means that society possesses for confronting the challenges of the future. Indeed, education will shape the world of tomorrow.' (1997: 13).
For the foreseeable future, sustainable management of the environment will be one of the greatest challenges confronting the world. Over the past 30 years, the international community has been confronted with a wide range of transboundary environmental problems which involve more than one country in terms of being responsible for the problem, dealing with its impact, and ultimately providing solutions.
Climate change, loss of biodiversity, declining fisheries, ozone layer depletion, and trade in endangered species, are only a few of the major environmental threats which have led to a global cooperative response.
Worldwide recognition that these problems reflect a need for global commitment to sustainability culminated at the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992 when 150 nations (including Australia) endorsed the Agenda 21 document, which provides a framework for sustainable development strategies at all levels.
Agenda 21 remains the basis of internationally agreed courses of action towards sustainable development. Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 on Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training focuses on the role of education in environmental decision making. In it, world leaders asserted that:
'education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of people to address environment and development issues. ... It is also critical for achieving environmental and ethical awareness, values and attitudes, skills and behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in decision-making.'
There is also an acknowledgment of the importance of education in achieving success in other Agenda 21 priority areas such as meeting basic needs, capacity building, environmental data and information, and environmental science.
An overview of the history of the development of environmental education is provided as Appendix 1.
For Australia, the Agenda 21 framework, and education's key role, are vital to resolving our domestic environmental challenges, and also to achieving sustainability on a global scale.
Many global environmental threats pose potentially major adverse consequences for the Australian environment - ozone depletion is an obvious example. Others, such as climate change, require substantial changes in the way our economy and society utilises energy and natural resources.
In addition, we face significant challenges with respect to those environmental problems which are essentially domestic. According to Australia State of the Environment 1996, a number of issues provide grounds for serious concern.
The most pressing of these issues are the loss of biodiversity and the continued destruction of habitats across Australia. In addition, river systems and groundwater supplies continue to be depleted at unsustainable rates in many parts of rural Australia, with major environmental consequences like algal blooms, rising salinity, and declining aquatic ecosystems. High rates of land clearance and vegetation loss, and the poor quality of our soils (and their slow rates of formation), make land degradation a problem of national proportions. In our cities, loss of remnant vegetation continues apace, air pollution is perceived as a major threat, while stormwater and sewage and other waste disposal continue to have substantial adverse impacts on biodiversity and water quality. Invasive plants and animals also pose a serious and increasing threat to native ecosystems in rural, urban, and marine environments.
Governments at all levels are working to meet these and other difficult environmental challenges. Through the Natural Heritage Trust in particular, the Commonwealth is providing an unprecedented degree of financial support to support a wide range of projects which respond effectively to the threats which have been identified as of greatest national concern.
Australia's ability to meet environmental threats at home and abroad is inextricably linked with the priority it places on effective environmental education.
Environmental issues are frequently complex and contested. Research, invention, innovation and adaptation are all required. None are possible, let alone likely, without a clear understanding of the ecological and policy issues and linkages involved. Without a firm, educated basis of knowledge and understanding, progress on environmental issues becomes haphazard, uncertain and unlikely.
We recognise the need to do more, we know many current environmental problems have solutions, but we often lack the information and understanding we need to effectively assess current environmental management practices, and plan for the future. The knowledge, values, skills and tools we need to meet environmental challenges are all sourced from formal and informal education.
In addition to providing us with the environmental literacy required to address threats to our natural capital, effective environmental education also enables us to integrate ecological thinking into social and economic planning - which is essential to achieving sustainable development.
An educated understanding of environmental issues also reduces the sense of helplessness which might emerge in the face of environmental challenges. In a fast-moving world of competing priorities, it is all too easy for governments, businesses, and individuals to turn away from medium and long-term problems (a category into which many environmental threats fall) and focus exclusively on the short-term. Without the empowerment and capacity to address problems, which environmental education provides, a short-term focus is all the more likely.