Genesis of environment education

Education is most common and most practical solution to protect earth from degradation. Raising awareness, increase knowledge and providing skills would help to combat the challenges of environment protection. Education is the process through which knowledge, values, attitudes and skills can be imparted to children and youth and motivate them to take actions towards protection of environment.


"Education & Youth Empowerment" group of Indian Youth Climate Network aims to provide youth with

•  ability to be informed youth
•  provide knowledge and skill to protect environment
•  to empower youth to take part in global governance
•  influence decision making process through participation

Genesis of environment education

The world first Intergovernmental Conference on Environment Education (ICEE) was organized by UNESCO and UNEP in October 1977, known as Tbilisi Conference. The objectives identified in Tbilisi Declaration were raising awareness, providing knowledge, motivating with set of values and attitudes, skills for solving environment problems and participation. Later in 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, popularly known as the Earth Summit resulted into documentation of Agenda 21 and three conventions. Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 deals with "Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training". The programme areas identified are reorienting education towards sustainable development, increase public awareness and promoting training. In December 2002, at the 57th meeting of United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). ESD addresses three pillars of sustainable development i.e. Society, Environment and Economics with culture as underlying dimension. One can notice the change in the language of the text from Tbilisi declaration which talks about environment education with awareness, knowledge, values, skills and participation as key words to integrating society, environment and economics for ESD. People, development, livelihood and environment were taken as deeply interlinked issues and combined approach was needed to safeguard the environment. UNCSD also has Education Caucus which works towards promoting ESD in collaboration with other UN agencies and NGO's.

The Earth Summit Agreement (Rio 1992) lead to three legally binding Conventions aimed at preventing global climate change, protecting diversity of biological species & combating desertification. All the convention has education as an important component.

• Article 6 of UNFCCC on education for Climate Change
• Article 13 of UNCBD on education for conservation of biodiversity
• Article 19 of UNCCD on education to combat desertification and mitigate effects of drought

Chair of SBI with Article 6 star given by Youth

Youth has played an important role in leading to a decision on Article 6 at Cancun, UNFCCC COP 16. Article 6 of the UNFCCC was at a dormant stage until COP 8 held in New Delhi, India in 2002 where New Delhi Work Programme Decision 11/CP.8 (NDWP) was formulated leading to a five year work programme on Article 6 with country driven approach. This decision has encouraged programmatic response by NGO's, designated national focal points for Article 6 activities, increase availability and dissemination of information on climate change and prepare assessment of needs but there was no special funding mechanism for the same. The New Delhi Work Programme was amended in 2007 (aNDWP) at COP 13 and intermediate review of aNDWP was held in COP 16 in 2010. Before the intermediate review by the parties at COP 16 at Cancun, the youth have gathered the energy towards this pending review to make sure the decision is finalized at Cancun. Kari Anne Isaksen (members of YOUNGO, youth consistency under UNFCCC) had made an important intervention at intersession at Bonn under Contact Group of Article 6 at SBI plenary. This youth intervention has influenced the decision at Cancun on Article 6. Youth inputs were incorporated in the final decision text. This decision is a victory of youth in UNFCCC process as this would enable youth to;

1. Have voice in your country's decisions on climate change.
2. Get support and recognition for youth-led education on climate change that takes place
outside of curriculum.
3. Work closer with government and other decision-making bodies to improve Climate Change
education in your country.
4. Increase and enhance the role of Official Youth Delegates at UNFCCC meetings.
5. Argue for increased funding or training for young people attending UNFCCC meetings.
6. Get some training in climate change communication and education.
7. Include women and girls in national climate change strategies.
8. Get support from the Secretariat to catalyse action on education.

The challenges ahead for the youth is to make the governments accountable for implementing Article 6 decision of Cancun Agreement, having a national focal point appointed with whom the youth of nation can interact and work together towards climate education.

The youth sincerely hope that the decision on Article 6 of UNFCCC would be implemented soon and our future will not be [bracketed].

Education for Sustainable Development

I was in second year of my bachelor’s course when Dr. Maitry of neighboring college Miranda House gave a guest lecture at my college SGTB Khalsa College on environmental protection.  My college faculty has always taught us the way of sustainable living, living in harmony with nature and respect the equity. We were aware about various environmental issues but one thing that touched my heart during Dr. Maitry talk was when she said, “we all should do our bit to protect the nature, don’t think that just your contribution will not make any difference, always remember Raja Ramohan Roy and Gandhiji have started the revolution alone and later people joined in”. This statement has motivated me to work for environment protection and now as an educator, I often say the same to my students to motivate them to be a change agent and mark beginning of a new revolution.

Education indeed is a long term process but I feel the most essential step towards sustainability. Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address environment and development issues. We cannot separate ENVIRONMENT and DEVELOPMENT. These two words are deeply interconnected and therefore development in sustainable manner is the need of hour.

Promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) was first discussed in year 1977 at Tbilisi Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education which had lead to have “EDUCATION” as integral part in Agenda 21 of United Nations, in fact “EDUCATION”  the second most used word in entire Agenda 21. Although education is an important part of entire document of Agenda 21 but Chapter 36 focuses on “Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training”.

I recently met Prof. Charles Hopkins, the author of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 and discussed the importance of ESD in present time. Charles Hopkins is at York University in Toronto where he holds both a UNESCO Chair and a United Nations University Chair. The UNESCO Chair coordinates an international network of teacher education institutions working upon the reorientation of teacher education to address sustainable development. Prof. Hopkins is an advisor to UNESCO and UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). He played major roles in both the Rio and Johannesburg UN Summits on Sustainability.

During discussion with Prof. Hopkins, I understood how ESD is important in both formal and informal education and also that an effective means of communication is needed for the same. It is also critical for achieving environmental and ethical awareness, values & attitude, skill & behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in decision making.  There is need to increase public sensitivity towards environment and involving them in the solution and foster a sense of personal environment responsibility. I would like to quote here a statement from Para 36.5.(b) “Due respect should be given to the community-defined needs and diverse knowledge systems, including science, cultural and social sensitivities.” We all would agree that traditional systems and practices were in harmony with their environment, it is the recent development practice which harms the environment. Now is the time when we should look back to the history and try to understand how people use to live.

In the following video, Prof. Hopkins is talking about ESD and Earth Charter at Centre for Environment Education (CEE) during Earth Charter Conference on Ethical Framework for a Sustainable World. He is talking about similar beginning of ESD and Earth Charter at Rio and how both are vital, timely and needed. Also what are the problems with ESD implementation at present time.

The Bonn declaration which Prof. Hopkins is talking about can be found here.

India has already steped forwarded towards ESD and CEE has been identified as the National Implementing Agency for Implementing DESD in India by the Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO (INC UNESCO), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. A National Committee on DESD has been formed with representations from the government, NGOs and subject experts to guide the implementation process for DESD. Some of the key components of the strategy on ESD for India would build upon existing experiences and initiatives, while strengthening areas of strategic focus for ESD. These include:

• Facilitating ESD through national networks and programmes;
• Aligning ESD objectives with national and global priorities and work with existing national strategies and guiding documents;
• Intersectoral Cooperation, Partnership and Networking at local, national, regional and international levels.

The details about DESD can be found here.

Shri. Kartikeya Sarabhai has indeed unique way of explaining things. Following video is about Shri. Sarabhai's thought on ESD.

Shri. Sarabhai's way of explaining had truly helped me understanding sustainability and motivates me to work towards the same. It is indeed the time when we all should look into education in more broader term and value its contribution towards sustainability. I would like to end with Prof Hopkins statement during UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development;

"ESD is one of the more powerful tools for preparing civilizations for the future. There is hope if we begin to collaborate on a global scale to see a more sustainable future for all as the ultimate goal of humanity."