Educating in natural systems, ecosystems and resource management

Reversing environmental damage, restoring natural processes, and managing in a way that resources are not only conserved but are built up over time requires a fundamental shift in the way we think and work with nature and agriculture. It is a shift from from exploiting resources to actively designing and re-creating resource systems that can mimic nature in form and function.

This strategy features in the framework of Agenda 21 as formulated at UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), now coordinated by the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and implemented through national and local authorities. Agenda 21 recommends ensuring that a sound educational base is provided in natural systems, ecology and resource management.

1. We are entering a new era in agriculture and resource management, one in which we actively design and create agro-ecosystems, forests, and watersheds, instead of depleting them. In the process of learning how to design, create and manage these new resource systems, we learn more and more about how to work with nature rather than against it.

1. Training ecological involvement
2. Reorienting education towards sustainable development
3. Expanding environmental management education and training
4. Educating in deep ecology
5. Educating

1. Training mountain communities in integrated environmental management
2. Informing about rainforests
3. Educating for integrated island management

1. Strengthening scientific and technological capacity
2. Improving knowledge on ecosystem processes
3. Conserving nature communally
4. Advancing environmentally sound technology and management systems

1. Unnaturalness
2. Mismanagement