Introduction

Environmental problems are social problems as well as ecological problems, and as such require political solutions. As Daniel Vidart argued in the wake of the 1975 UNESCO Belgrade Workshop on Environmental Education, “awareness of environmental problems is social awareness rather than ecological awareness. Such problems will be solved through collective action aimed at eradicating the social and economic causes of the degradation of the human environment.” (Reference Vidart1978, p. 476) Sadly, the education associated with addressing environmental problems is often seen as too political by education systems and thus environmental issues are frequently marginalised or sanitised when considered in school curricula, and, as I discuss in this article, fifty years on there is little indication that much has changed, except perhaps in the context of climate change.

Environmental education is also intended to be action oriented. As argued by UNESCO, it “should adopt a critical approach to encourage careful awareness of the various factors involved in the situation,” involve learners in planning their learning experiences, “utilise diverse learning environments and a broad array of educational approaches to teaching/learning” and “focus on current and potential environmental situations” (1980, p. 27). This was not seen as being able to implemented through the traditional approach to education, “which is too abstract and fragmentary [and] has been unsuccessful in preparing individuals to face the changing complexity of reality,” but rather through “an education centred on the practical problems of the environment” which “should help the public to question its misconceptions concerning the problems of the environment” and adopt “a critical approach to encourage careful analysis and awareness of the various factors involved in the situation” (UNESCO, 1980, pp. 26–27). This critical and action orientation has been problematic for many education systems, and stakeholders who influence governments. As Vidart pointed out in the next sentence to the previous quote: “The political aspects of this search for solutions may give rise to conflicts of various kinds. One such conflict, and not the least, is the collision between the educational system and the private interests which operate in alliance with the powers of the State.” (1978, p. 476) The widespread adoption of neoliberalism by governments and institutions has certainly had its impact on the implementation of environmental education, as has been clearly argued by David Hursh, Joseph Henderson and David Greenwood (Reference Hursh, Henderson and Greenwood2015) and other authors in that special issue of Environmental Education Research:

Neoliberalism and other political developments are part of the changing times that need to be considered as we rethink environmental education research stakeholders and strategies.

Background

The early history of environmental education in Australia has been documented elsewhere (see, for example, Gough, Reference Gough1997; Greenall Gough, Reference Greenall Gough1991; Greenall, Reference Greenall and Robottom1987) and will not be repeated here, except to note the political aspects of its recognition by state and territory education authorities.

Concerns about the state of the environment in the 1960s led to many actions at international and national levels in the early 1970s. While the Australian and state governments were willing to legislate regarding air and water quality – for example, Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority was established in 1971 under the Environment Protection Act 1970 – they were slower to respond educationally. This point was supported by Geoff Spring who, in commenting on the reception of environmental education as a priority area for the then recently created national Curriculum Development Centre in 1974, noted that some Council members “felt that environmental education was not an educational priority in the way that it was a political priority nor in the way that many academics felt it was a cultural priority for Australia” (as quoted in Greenall, Reference Greenall1981, p. 136). That it was a political priority was reflected in the 1973 Australian Labor Party platform statement:

Some states (Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania (only in draft form)) released environmental education policies in the mid 1970s. These may have been prompted by the Curriculum Development Centre’s activities in this area (Greenall and Womersley, Reference Greenall and Womersley1977), or by the 1975 Australian National Commission for UNESCO seminar on education and the human environment (Linke, Reference Linke1977). However, as Greenall (Reference Greenall and Robottom1987, p. 11) noted about its status in the mid 1980s, “Environmental education was interpreted as education in the environment and education about the environment… [and] very few of these activities had attitudinal or action components, ‘education for the environment’.” In addition, none of the policies gave environmental education “a particularly high priority, and few provided much support in the form of resources” (p. 11).

Environmental education policies

In the lead-up to World Environment Day in 1989, ozEEnews, the newsletter of the Australian Association for Environmental Education, headlined that Stuart Littlemore of ABC-TV had described the electronic media’s coverage of environmental issues as “flavour of the month” (Greenall Gough, Reference Greenall Gough1989, p. 1). At that time, environmental education seemed to be riding the same wave. For example, in addition to the state environmental education policies noted above, the need for Australian school students to learn about the environment was included in the first national education declaration, the 1989 Hobart Declaration on Schooling where one of the 10 goals was, “an understanding of, and concern for, balanced development and the global environment and complex environmental and social challenges” (Australian Education Council, 1989, p. 1). Three other states also produced environmental education policy statements in the late 1980s (New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria) and the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory released theirs in the mid 1990s, associated with the proposed introduction of the Australian national curriculum (Gough, Reference Gough1997).

In the late 1980s, the Australian Department of Employment, Education and Training was active in environmental education. They sponsored a Bicentennial Australian Studies Schools Project Bulletin on “Education for the Australian Environment” (Fien, Reference Fien1988) and they released a national environmental education strategy, “Learning for Our Environment” in 1989, which involved making $400 000 in grants for environmental education activities (Anon, 1990). However, nothing further was heard of this strategy (Greenall Gough, Reference Greenall Gough1991), and all future Australian government environmental education strategies have come from environment departments (Environment Australia, Reference Australia2000; Department of the Environment and Heritage (DEH), 2005; Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA), 2009).

Although the policy statements were not overtly encouraging of student action, in the early 1990s some Australian environmental educators and researchers were promoting critical reflection and action activities around environmental issues (see, for example, Fien, Reference Fien1993; Greenall Gough & Robottom, Reference Greenall Gough and Robottom1993; Murdoch, Reference Murdoch1993). However, they were in the minority and the pressures towards an Australian Curriculum, thwarted in the early 1990s but successful in the next decade, returned the focus to more traditional curricula and pedagogy.

Environment Australia’s (Reference Australia2000) strategy, Environmental education for a sustainable future: National action plan, complemented the 1999 Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling in the Twenty-First Century. This Declaration moved recognition of complex environmental and social challenges to the preamble, and added a new goal, that students should have “an understanding of, and concern for, stewardship of the natural environment, and the knowledge and skills to contribute to ecologically sustainable development” (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA), 1999, Goal 1.7). This was an expansion of goal in the Hobart Declaration, although it was still missing an action component. In contrast, the Environment Australia (Reference Australia2000, p. 5) strategy was concerned with achieving changed behaviour in support of a sustainable environment: “A key element in the National Action Plan is a move from an emphasis on awareness raising to an emphasis on providing people with the knowledge, values and skills to actually make a difference to the protection and conservation of Australia’s environment.”

As well as establishing a National Environmental Education Council, under the action plan funding was provided for implementing the sustainable schools programme (Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative [AuSSI]) nationally (Larri & Colliver, Reference Larri, Colliver, Gough, Lee and Tsang2020), and for publishing a national statement on environmental education for schools (Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2005). An aim of AuSSI was that, “by participating in a learning by doing process, students achieve a better understanding of the world in which they live, and have opportunities to help create a more sustainable future” (Larri & Colliver, Reference Larri, Colliver, Gough, Lee and Tsang2020, p. 68), and a similar philosophy was incorporated into the national statement on environmental education for schools. Both emphasised a whole school approach. Although a second national action plan for education for sustainability (DEWHA, 2009) was released, the Australian Government withdrew support for the plan and its associated initiatives in early 2010 and there have not been any further action plans.

The 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians expanded on the environmental content of the Adelaide Declaration and recognised the unprecedented challenges posed by climate change. Here, the preamble noted new demands on Australian education, including “Complex environmental, social and economic pressures such as climate change that extend beyond national borders pose unprecedented challenges, requiring countries to work together in new ways” (MCEETYA, 2008, p. 5). The goal to accompany this statement was for students to become “active and informed members of citizens [who] … work for the common good, in particular sustaining and improving natural and social environments” (p. 9), and the associated action was a resolution that “a focus on environmental sustainability will be integrated across the curriculum” (p. 14). Although sustainability has been included as a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian Curriculum since its inception, and despite attempts to remove it (Donnelly & Wiltshire, Reference Donnelly and Wiltshire2014), its placement within the curriculum is haphazard, it generally develops a shallow understanding of sustainability, if it is taught to students at all (Nicholls, Reference Nicholls2017). However, as discussed in the next section, we are in many ways lucky that it is still there.

The most recent national statement on goals for schooling is the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, which replaced the Melbourne Declaration in December 2019. This simply sees education as preparing “young people to thrive in a time of rapid social and technological change, and complex environmental, social and economic challenges” (Education Council, 2019, p. 2), and repeats the above goal from the Melbourne Declaration. It is silent on climate change, and reduces consideration of sustainability in the curriculum to encouraging students to “engage with complex ethical issues and concepts such as sustainability” (p. 15).

Recognition of environmental education has waxed and waned across the three decades of related policy statements discussed in this section. Back in 1995, the ozEEnews editor and state delegates of the Australian Association for Environmental Education (Watterson et al, Reference Watterson, Gowland, Sionelli, Andrew, Gardner, Stadler, Foster, Allen and Young1995, p. 1) summarised their experiences this way:

This statement could equally well be written in 2024. As I will discuss below, even though times have changed, in more recent decades we have had governments that are overtly resisting the environment and environmental education even as a political priority, and the public often seems to be more engaged with these issues than the politicians.

Disengaging with environmental education

As already noted, the Australian Government education area disengaged from any involvement in environmental education around 1989, apart from the Australian Curriculum. Even in the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) (DESD) responsibility for coordination and implementation of activities fell to the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, who also managed other environmental education activities at the national level (Gough, Reference Gough2011), rather than the education ministry. There were a number of relevant activities at the beginning of the Decade, including activities that had their origins in the first national action plan for environmental education (Environment Australia, Reference Australia2000), such as the release of a national action plan for environmental education in schools (DEH, 2005), but there were few specifically focused on implementing the Decade in Australia (Gough, Reference Gough2011; Tilbury, Reference Tilbury2006).

However, even the environment ministry ceased its involvement in environmental education activities halfway through the Decade. In early 2010, the Rudd Labor Australian Government withdrew its support for, and involvement in, the implementation of the first and second national environmental/sustainability education action plans (Environment Australia, Reference Australia2000; DEWHA, 2009; Larri & Colliver, Reference Larri, Colliver, Gough, Lee and Tsang2020). This meant that the National Environmental Education Council (renamed National Council on Education for Sustainability in 2009) and the National Environmental Education Network (renamed National Education for Sustainability Network in 2009) were disbanded and the over-arching national coordination role that both bodies performed disappeared, and have not been reconstituted. National funding for the AuSSI was discontinued, and states and territories were left to develop their own strategies for supporting school-based initiatives. In addition, funding for environmental educational research, including the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability (ARIES) at Macquarie University, ended. The funding that flowed to ARIES ($2.3 million over 2003–2005) included projects related to

Although such an investment in environmental education was welcome, it did not necessarily benefit many beyond Macquarie University or leave a long-lasting impact once the funding ended.

Of all the actions in the national environmental education strategies, the survivors are the variations on sustainable schools still to be found in some states and territories (Larri & Colliver, Reference Larri, Colliver, Gough, Lee and Tsang2020) and the embedding of sustainability as a cross-curriculum priority in the Australian Curriculum. However, as noted previously, the inclusion of sustainability here has been under scrutiny twice, specifically under Liberal Australian Governments (Abbott then Morrison).

Rethinking stakeholders and strategies

Critical environmental politics have led community calls for climate action to be far ahead of the Australian Government’s actual actions. This is not only apparent from the state government policies and actions discussed in the last section but also from the results of the 2022 federal election, and in the growth of youth empowerment and action.

The 2022 federal election saw more women elected to the Australian Parliament, the emergence of the independent “teal” politicians, elected on a platform of concern for climate action, and an increase in the number of Green party politicians (Kenny, Reference Kenny2023). Importantly, in terms of stakeholders, the election saw women voting for labour, greens and independents rather than the Liberal party (Cameron et al, Reference Cameron, McAllister, Jackman and Sheppard2022). Significantly,

This change in voter behaviour indicates that we need to re-think the strategies we adopt for environmental education, especially when you also take into consideration that young people are not becoming more conservative voters as they get older. As Jacqueline Maley (Reference Maley2024, p. 20) observes,

This observation brings together three related issues. Firstly, that neoliberal politics and their emphasis on economics rather than environment, as evidenced by successive Australian Government’s approach to environmental issues and environmental education, is possibly backfiring. Secondly, that we need to be listening more to youth and working with them in environmental education research (such as in Verlie (Reference Verlie2021), and Roussell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles (Reference Roussell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles2023)). Working to empower and mobilise youth for taking action in communities is also consistent with the UNESCO (2020) priority action areas.

The third is young people’s politics being bound up with their personal identity and the “rise of a new generation of nihilists” (Syfret, Reference Syfret2023, p. 23). According to WGSN (2023), The New Nihilists

Greta Thunberg (Reference Thunberg2018) invoked this sense of nihilism when she wrote “Why should any young person be made to study for a future when no one is doing enough to save that future?”, but instead of giving up she created the Fridays for Future (Youth Strike for Climate) movement. She is one of a group of Gen Z—“the outsiders, the independent thinkers, the rule-breakers and the navel-gazers” (WGSN, 2023)—who have not given up hope, and so they offer the possibility of change. If they are envisioning new realities, reimagining a different world, where they can be happy then it might be one where people are living in better harmony with the environment. We need to be encouraging more like Thunberg. As Wendy Syfret (Reference Syfret2021) explains, “Nihilism is sometimes described as a destructive force. But I like to think of it as a tool: one that helps me dismantle and challenge the way the world has been presented.” Youth action for climate change returns us to the action orientation of environmental education (UNESCO, 1980), something that has mostly been lost over the years.

Conclusion

A major difference between how the environment was perceived politically fifty years ago and now is encapsulated in a question from Greta Thunberg (Reference Thunberg2018): “What is the point of learning facts when the most important facts given by the finest scientists are ignored by our politicians?”. In the 1970s politicians listened to the scientists and acted for the environment through legislation, and environmental education followed. As is obvious from the Australian (and other national) government’s responses to the climate crisis, they are no longer listening to scientists. But as environmental educators we can ensure that through our research and teaching practices the scientists’ facts are not ignored. We can work with the already active stakeholders (women and youth), listening to their voices, providing opportunities for their empowerment with an aim of increasing their numbers… and continuing to play politics. The environment is both a political and an educational priority, and the current status is critical.