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A basic problem in many countries is the broad lack of environmental awareness at all levels, which impedes addressing environment in decision-making (whether by governments or more local authorities) and in the actions of non-government actors (small and large companies, natural resource users, citizens, etc). This problem arguably stems from the fact that in many such countries, ‘environment’ is not addressed in the education system. So decision-makers, when they rise to such positions, have no perception of the issues and others are unaware of the potential consequences of their actions on the environment. Where investment in environmental education has been made (e.g. India, Box 5.5), those countries fare much better.
Box 5.5: Environmental education in India
Environmental Science has been important to Indians since ancient times. Through the 1990s, the Indian government and some NGOs initiated programmes to understand, monitor and raise awareness about environmental science following increasing concern about human-induced environmental degradation. Examples include the National Green Corps of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Eco Club programmes of the State Governments. National NGOs such as the Centre for Environmental Education, Development Alternatives (www.cleanindia.in) and World Wide Fund for Nature provided added learning experiences to deepen understanding and show where action was needed for environmental improvement.
In 2003, in an effort to mainstream environmental education and promote responsible environmental behaviour, the Supreme Court of India issued a Directive to the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to prepare a model syllabus for environment education to be introduced in all the grades uniformly throughout the country. The NCERT is an apex body established to assist and advise the Central and State Governments and provide academic and technical support for improvement of school education.
The syllabus aims to educate future citizens about sustainable living. It incorporates the country’s rich cultural traditions and indigenous practices along with the modern scientific and technological developments. It also attempts to fill current educational gaps by re-organising delivery and supplementing theory with appropriate practical experiences so as to raise practical awareness of problems and issues. It aims to deliver effective individual and community action for improvement.
In 2004, The Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India initiated the “Strengthening Environment Education in School System” programme with State departments of Education across India. The process involved the ‘greening’ of text books, development of education material, training of master trainers, teacher training and implementation in schools. With the concept of in-service training for teachers changing rapidly, it is also offered in an ‘open and distance learning’ (ODL) mode. Environment science is offered in undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral and post-doctoral studies in colleges and universities across the country.
Environment education is not just a teaching-learning transaction. It has permeated the educational systems and is reflected in both the physical environment of schools and in the attitudes and actions of people and has thus become thus a way of life for all.
CLEAN –India: an initiative for change
In 1998, The Indian NGO Development Alternatives established CLEAN-India (Community Led Environment Action Network - of schools and NGOs linked with Government, business, academic and other institutions, see www.cleanindia.in). This initiative involves over a million school students empowered to be environment ambassadors/agents of change to influence communities and local governments behave responsibly and undertake environmental assessment and improvement in all major towns and cities of India. Some positive outcomes include:
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School students grow their mid day meal on waste: Under the Government’s Mid Day Meal Scheme, students used to get few vegetables as a part of their lunch. 30 students from a government school in Trivandrum were given some old sacks and seedlings and given ‘city farming’ training. After two years, they are now growing a variety in 2000 sacks covering all the school terraces. There are enough vegetables for a nutritious meal every day and the extra is sold to the teachers. Through this initiative, they are conserving water, managing the waste at source, and so reducing costs, pollution, load on land fills and carbon emissions. The local government has now expanded the city farming approach to over 50 schools and many communities in Dindigul, Aurangabad and Trivandrum.
Self help groups of women in many CLEAN-India towns/cities have taken up vermi-composting to manage household kitchen and vegetable market waste and to earn a living by selling the compost to farmers and organic food growers.
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Students make their own paper: Students from over 100 schools and under privileged and physically challenged children make their own paper using the mini paper recycling plants. The national Government has been inspired to recycle all waste paper generated in its Delhi offices using a plant at the Delhi secretariat to make government file covers, letter heads and other stationery.
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Increasing the green cover: in partnership with the Forest Department, School students and communities have planted and now nurture over a million native trees. Under “Free the Trees” Programme, they have been campaigning for care of mature trees (‘freeing’ trees from unnecessary tilling, cutting by tree guards, etc.). As a result, t he Government has established a “tree help line” in place for citizens to phone in and register concerns/complaints.
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Access to safe drinking water: Students monitor the quality of drinking water in their towns and cities using a water monitoring kit (Jal TARA) developed by Development Alternatives, spread awareness about the kit and initiate simple water purification and conservation measures (rain water harvesting, tap water harvesting, etc.). As a result, water purification systems (based on slow sand filtration technique) have been installed in many public places like the Varanasi temple which is visited by thousands of pilgrims and in schools and housing complexes.
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Some approaches to mainstreaming, particularly procedurally or technically complex ones demand good skills and experience in holistic thinking and analysis, and institutional capacity to manage the processes and harness the outputs. But all too often, developing countries lack the necessary skills and institutional capacity, or at least in sufficient numbers and depth to satisfy the breadth of need. The Kenya survey revealed a pervasive sentiment that:
“Tools are available but they are often too complex or require more capacity or skills than exist. Tools that require too much technical know-how or skills from outside will not be useful in Kenya” (Sandford & Vijge, 2008)
In the Caribbean skills are scare in four key areas (CANARI, 2008):
- conducting high quality impact assessments;
- collection, storage and analysis of spatial data;
- conflict management;
- facilitation of participatory and consultative processes.
“While most Caribbean islands have an inherent human resource capacity problem as a result of their small populations, it was felt to be particularly acute in relation to environmental mainstreaming where there is insufficient capacity to effectively meet even the statutory requirements, let alone the more proactive actions needed. Consultants often work in islands other than the one they are resident in, and foreign companies or individuals are also hired with inadequate understanding of the culture and context.” (CANARI, 2008)
Inadequate institutional capacity can be a matter of insufficient personnel (a human resource problem) with training, knowledge or experience of:
- environmental issues in general;
- specific environmental issues or problems/challenges in particular;
- particular mainstreaming methods, tools or tactics (what exists, how to apply, etc.)
Commonly, available skilled and experienced personnel are concentrated at national level within government, agency or organisational headquarters – usually in capitals. There is often a vacuum at local levels (regions, provinces, districts, municipalities). As the Environmental Manager for Durban/eThekwini municipality in South Africa noted, “Municipalities do not have resources and skills – the few skilled and dedicated carry huge workloads”.
Even where such human resources with the necessary skills and experience are in place, sometimes national economic situations and/or budget allocations are such that ministries/agencies do not have the financial resources to carry out their responsibilities/tasks effectively (e.g. vehicles cannot be repaired, fuel cannot be purchased for fieldwork, equipment lies in need of repair, data is not collected, etc.).
In some countries the necessary institutions (e.g. governmental or administrative departments – at national to local levels, or agencies/organisations with environmental management, research and oversight responsibilities) are not in place, or are insufficiently resourced and funded to function effectively, or are poorly managed. There is also a problem that environmental ministries/departments are usually not particularly powerful or influential in relation to other line ministries – and therefore find it difficult to promote the environmental agenda.
“It is widely acknowledged that the environmental authorities [in Latin America] generally lack political weight. Various studies show that there are gaps in the institutional capacity for enforcement of environmental policies and insufficient mobilisation of resources (both technical and human). The mere existence of environmental regulators is not enough; better communication, dialogue and coordination of activities between those responsible for implementing the relevant public policies is required.” (RIDES, 2008)
Insufficient resourcing exacerbates the inability to cope with ‘hyper production’ of new environmental legislation in countries seeking EU membership (e.g. Croatia) and the obligations this brings for regional and local environmental authorities:
“New obligations usually come in the form of general directions without concrete guidance/measures from the national level authorities about operational implementation in the field, and without anticipated possibilities for financing of implementation costs. So local and regional authorities are left on their own to find implementation solutions and secure adequate funding. This results in the lack of sufficient staff and/or adequate technical knowledge to perform all administrative tasks in a satisfactory manner and to develop Terms of Reference for provision of goods and services for projects in their competence (primarily infrastructure”. (Integra, 2008)
Capacity development for improved environmental management has been a central theme for development cooperation agencies for many years, but much remains to done. For environmental mainstreaming, the focus might usefully be on the key mainstreaming approaches covered in this synthesis and in relation to the main points of leverage in the policy-making, planning and decision-making cycle (Figure 13.1). But to be effective, specific capacity development efforts need to be informed by needs assessments. Such assessments need to look at the ability of governments and particular ministries/agencies to absorb financial resources targeted at environmental programmes. A frequent problem is the danger of overloading the few existing, capable and trained ‘environmental’ staff with responsibilities to assume new roles and tasks.
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