Anna Bellosi

Cities are getting bigger and our economic, cultural and social system remains the same. Cities cannot afford to grow without limits while wasting essential resources. Therefore, we city dwellers must live sustainably. But what does it mean? Education can help the population to understand this concept and we can learn how to live along with nature.

Figure 1: Biodiversity Education in Mexico City’s Zoological Parks (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2012)

There are several example of environmental education all over the world. Hereafter some of them.

• Mexico City operates three zoological parks: Chapultepec Zoo, San Juan de Aragón Zoo, and Los Coyotes Zoo. The zoological parks have many educational programs and activities for groups and schools. Activities may focus about specific animal/plant species or about biodiversity-related themes such as climate change, water management, or habitat protection. In any case, the zoological parks have many visitors that can heighten awareness of the importance of biodiversity and its central role in a sustainable future (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2012).
• In Milan, Italy the Arca foundation has produced a Guideline to educate teachers and children on how to make and use a school garden for Education to Global Citizenship and Beyond. This vademecum has been used in several Italian schools with great results (Milano Food Policy & Comune di Milano, 2020).
• Informative workshops in a small fisherfolk community of Cadiz City in Negros Occidental. There, people exchanged opinions and made conversation to identify some societal/environmental problems and to solve them in an efficient way (Chiumkanokchai, 2019).

Brief history and definition of ESD

The idea of education for sustainable development (ESD) came up first in 1987 from a report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Kopnina & Meijers, 2013). In 2002, the United Nation nominated the importance of ESD. Then UNESCO took the responsibility to define the new  education and encourage the educational national systems to re-orient towards a sustainable education (Ulbrich et al., 2010).

ESD comprehend the definition of environmental education (it seems that there’re many definitions, so I will just suggest one of them):

The environmental education is essential to know the basics of a sustainable community. Its main goal is to create a common sense of duty towards the environment, which means that people are ready to collaborate and to fight for living more sustainable. Further ahead, people could improve skill and evaluate different environmental problems to solve different issues while taking into account cultural, economic, and social aspects. The last step of the environmental education is to involve directly the population to participate and contribute to environmental challenges (Kopnina & Meijers, 2013; UNESCO, 2017).

In addition, ESD have the concept of sustainable development in the economic, social and ecological dimensions. There are three important components of ESD:

• Ethical components in justice of sustainable development (e.g equal chances for present and future generations)
• Temporal components such as future-linked development. Which means, we must be able to predict what the consequences of our action are in order to avoid such uncomfortable situations.
• Interdisciplinary thinking.

Therefore, instead of dealing only with environmental issues such as management and protection of natural resources, ESD deals with other different topics such as justice, mobility, culture, fair trade and participation (Ulbrich et al., 2010).

Is ESD enough?

ESD must be accompanied by ecological education, because you need to have a basic knowledge of nature and of environmental issues if you want to live sustainably. Therefore, we can have a brighter sight of which behaviors we have to change to live in harmony with nature. Indeed, we must add the Convention on Biological Diversity – signed during the RioEarth Summit 1992- as basic of ESD (Ulbrich et al., 2010).

There are four key-themes to teach biodiversity, particularly in cities, correlated to ESD :

• Diversity of ecosystems such as urban landscapes. These will be increasingly important because the cities will be bigger and with fewer resources. This could affect the biodiversity inside and outside the cities. Therefore, increasing biodiversity, could also improve the quality of life, the health, etc. (Ulbrich et al., 2010) .
• Ecosystem services such as use of the air, water and soil as essentials for humankind (Ulbrich et al., 2010). Even in this case, we must be careful about wasting resources, especially in the cities, where, the essentials requests will grow in the future. In fact, the city’s communities could learn how it works the management and the use of resources (e.g waste) (UNESCO, 2017).
• Climate change will also affect ecosystems and available resources. So, the knowledge of climate change consequences can help the local people to develop new ideas to reduce CO2 impacts and to find a way to live in the future with new environmental conditions (Ulbrich et al., 2010).
• Consumption and behavior are essential topics for the creation of a sustainable community. We must adapt the urban economy and culture in a way that does not affect our essential resources such as food, clothes, health and energy (Ulbrich et al., 2010; UNESCO, 2017). In fact, the cities have the major impact in terms of consumption, plus they are also more affected by the consequences of it.

The importance of communities in cities

All these types of education can be useful to begin a communication and sharing of issues among citizens. In this way, in different cities, it is possible to create sustainable communities. In fact, it’s important to give some responsibilities to small groups of people to act differently and specifically for the fraction of their territory. These social groups can also get together to discuss central issues in everyday life.

It is important to provide a knowledge base of what human needs and urban restrictions a city might have (e.g. cultivation areas, no constructions for historical/cultural reason). Furthermore, the citizen must understand the need of compromises for some sustainable projects. Moreover, it is very important to have platforms for discussions and communication among different cultural groups within cities, if they share a common argument/problem. That could lead to a solution to many problems that come at a local level (Kopnina & Meijers, 2013; UNESCO, 2017).

This sustainable education in cities should also be accessible to all. As mentioned earlier, in ESD everyone must have an equal chance to become sustainable. In New York, for example, a non-profit association offers disadvantaged young people the chance to learn more about the biodiversity of the Bronx River. Therefore, they can learn more about their own community that comprehend also the flora and the fauna of the river (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, 2012).

Conclusion and reflection

The education for sustainable development is one of the way of face environmental problems. Sustainable education must become a culture. We need to complement educations with concrete actions that are essential to be able to assess environmental problems concerning humans and other species on the planet.

We cannot focus only on our own society, because natural life is essential to our lives and to the life of the planet itself. Therefore, environmental education is essential to start living in a healthy, clean, green society, especially in cities, where the consumption of natural resources is increasing and so we need to find a way not to have a deadly impact on nature.

The good news is that there are now many people around the world who are coming to the conclusion that only by maturing internally and establishing an empathic relationship with the Earth can we survive as a species and promote the healing of the whole planet. “If we really had to distinguish our time from previous eras, – writes the American psychologist Mariana Caplan – perhaps we would do better to emphasize the fact that we have never been so close to self-destruction. Ironically, it is precisely because things are so bad that it is possible for a collective need for self-awareness to emerge “.

Personally, I think that communication among people (that comprehend educational systems) can have an important impact of our perception of life and that can change directly our behavior, because if we think together we will change together.

Sources

Chiumkanokchai, C. (2019). Building a rapport: Community-based education for sustainable development . UNESCO. https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/building-rapport-community-based-education-sustainable-development

Milano Food Policy & Comune di Milano. (2020). Linee guida per gli orti didattici nelle scuole milanesi. https://www.foodpolicymilano.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Linee-Guida-Orti-Didattici.pdf

Ulbrich, K., Settele, J., & Benedict, F. (2010). Biodiversity in Education for Sustainable Development – Reflection on School-Research Cooperation. https://www.academia.edu/es/20749303/Biodiversity_in_Education_for_Sustainable_Development_Reflection_on_School_Research_Cooperation

Kopnina, H., & Meijers, F. (2013). Education for sustainable development (ESD) – Exploring theoretical and practical challenges. https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1467-6370

Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. (2012). Cities and Biodiversity Outlook – Action and Policy. https://sdgs.un.org/sites/default/files/publications/1104cbo-action-policy-en.pdf

UNESCO. (2017a). Education for Sustainable Development Goals: learning objectives. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000247444