Successful Conservation Through Education?
The World’s Education Gap
Education is a fundamental human right that empowers people with the knowledge and skills they need to live independently and sustainably. Therefore, providing every single person in the world with equal access to quality education would be a massive step towards eliminating poverty, averting the current climate crisis and solving other social ills. However, even in this day and age, there are still about 750 million adults that cannot read or write. Two thirds of illiterate people worldwide are women, and three quarters live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where the biggest challenges are being faced. In sub-Saharan Africa less than half of the schools at primary and lower secondary level have access to electricity, the Internet, computers and basic drinking water. It is clear that there is a long way to go before equality in education is achieved.
Predictably, the biggest determining factor on whether a child receives a quality education, is income, both between and within countries. In low-income countries, it is thought that by 2030, nine out of every ten young people could still not be achieving basic secondary-level skills, compared to three out of ten in high-income countries. Children, especially in a low-income context, face multiple barriers to accessing school, including poverty, gender, and location. Some of the world’s poorest children need to work in order to provide for their families. Some cannot afford school fees, and even where fees have been eliminated, costs for materials such as uniforms and books can pose a problem. Additional barriers are faced by girls, conflict-affected children, and children with disabilities.
How does the education gap Affect conservation?
So how does the education gap affect conservation? Lack of education leads to a lack of understanding of conservation issues. Take the example of deforestation. The poorest people in the poorest continents of South America, Africa and Asia need to find a way to finance a living. These continents also have the highest amount of tropical rainforest so harvesting timber presents itself as a quick and easy way to get money and so they cut down the forest indiscriminately. If these people were to gain skills and knowledge allowing them to make a living in another way, we could potentially see less deforestation. Also, making people aware of the long-term negative effects they are having on the environment and consequential negative ramifications on their families and descendants could lead them to seek alternative work. This is a very simplified example of the problem but shows this and similar problems like illegal gold mining and hunting for bush meat could potentially be solved with improved education.
In the past two decade’s efforts have been stepped up by world leaders to address these issues. In 2000, eight ambitious Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were set to meet the needs of the worlds poorest, with MDG Goal 2 being: “Achieve universal primary education” by 2015. Unfortunately, 263 million children and young adults between six and seventeen are still out of school today, a number that has barely changed over the last decade. The UN has now set 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and pledged that by 2030 “No one will be left behind”. The education SDG 4 is to: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. This aims to close the education gap, but to do this, massive reforms to education systems are needed, especially in developing countries. A number of researchers are suggesting leapfrog or distance learning, taking advantage of todays technology to get past the lack of resources and trained teachers available in disadvantaged communities. This could provide positive results but it will take time for governments to change their education systems if they choose to do so at all.
Education and Outreach for Conservation
With many countries focusing on simply getting children a basic education, it can be hard to put time and resources into environmental and conservation education. However, teaching about environmental issues is now essential for the conservation of our planet’s biodiversity, forests and other natural resources which will ultimately play a key role in the future of human existence on this planet.
This education can be done on a number of levels.
1. Simply making the public more aware of the current climate crisis and suggesting ways to live more sustainably.
2. Educating the youth of today, so they gain a deeper understanding of conservation issues occurring locally and globally and, therefore, take a more active approach to looking after the planet.
3. And, perhaps, the biggest role that education has in conservation today is to educate governments, urging a stronger global response to the threat of greenhouse gas induced climate change.
Appropriate education and outreach has been shown to improve public support for conservation, foster sustainable behaviour, reduce poaching in protected areas, improve compliance with environmental regulations and influence decisions that affect the environment and natural resources.
Conservation Education aims to provide learners opportunities to develop:
· Awareness of the environment and associated problems,
· Knowledge and understanding of the environment and conservation problems.
· Attitudes and feelings of concern for the environment and motivation to participate in conservation.
· Skills for identifying and solving conservation problems
· Participation in conservation by actively working to resolve environmental issues.
United Nations conferences on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and 2012 lead to the development of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programmes. These emphasise the need to address three goals:
1. Protecting the environmental systems that sustain life
2. Enhancing social justice for all people and
3. Ensuring appropriate economic development.
The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005 - 2014) aimed to integrate the principles and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning, to encourage changes in knowledge, values and attitudes with the vision of enabling a more sustainable and just society for all. This has even further highlighted the importance of including whole institution approaches to education for sustainable development in both formal and non-formal settings.
Including conservation topics in formal school education will help foster a more informed society and aid in the evolution of future conservationists. Most school curricula now include environmental education either by itself or linked with other subjects like biology and geography.
Informal public education aims to provide engaging ways to teach about important conservation issues. From nature documentaries, to social media, technology now allows us to reach a massive audience and provide them with awareness, knowledge and maybe even changes in attitudes on conservation issues. But one of the most effective ways of getting children and adults to connect with and care about nature is to experience it first hand by getting outdoors.
Outdoor education can occur anywhere; in back gardens or on coastal and woodland walks, visits to the beach and local nature reserves are all also great places to get people thinking about nature and the environment in their every day lives. Learning about the environment close to home makes people more likely to want to protect it.
Source: Ardoin et al. 2020
At The LEAF Charity, we believe it to be our responsibility to provide education, as well as resources, so that the goals of equality and sustainability for all can be achieved. To do this we need to reach children and adults in settings as diverse as schools, villages, farms and forests. The survival of our ecosystems as well as the plants, animals and people that depend on them rely on the ability to educate these people for a more sustainable future.
As a group of well-informed individuals, we are working in the countries that need help the most. We provide training, opportunities and resources to enable successful conservation efforts and initiate projects which will stand the test of time, benefitting local people as well as local wildlife.
Further reading
Environmental education outcomes for conservation: A systematic review
Scenario planning to leap-frog the sustainable development goals
Leapfrogging to ensure that no child is left without access to a twenty-first century education
Educational resource: Investigating introduced predators in your green space