African Wildlife and Environment Issue 64

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

Goals was the largest, most wide-spread and inclusive public participation process in human history. References Dambuza, T. and Taylor, J. (2015) African Citizens Monitor River Health: the Stream Assessment Scoring System. USA National Water Monitoring News acwi. gov/monitoring Sprint 2015 Dent, M. and Taylor, L. (in press) Strategic developments that will support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management in South Africa. Alliance for Water Stewardship , http://www. allianceforwaterstewardship.org Fenner, W. (2008) The Earth as a Social-Ecological System? Presentation at “Resilience 2008: Resilience, Adaptation and Transformation in Turbulent Times.” Conference in Stockholm, Sweden, April 14-17 2008 (Fenner School of Environment and Society). GrahamPM, Dickens CWS & Taylor RJ (2004). miniSASS - A novel technique for community participation in river health monitoring and management. African Journal of Aquatic Science . Vol 29 (1) 2004 pg 25-36. ISSN 1608-5914 O’Donoghue, R. (2001) Environment and active learning in OBE, Share-Net, Howick. Pringle, J.A. (1982) The Conservationists and the Killers: The Story of Game Protection and the Wildlife Society of Southern Africa . T.V. Bulpin, Cape Town. Taylor, J. (2014) Shaping the GAP: Ideas for the UNESCO Post-2014 ESD Agenda. SAGE Publications. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC) www.sagepublications.com Vol 8(2): 1–9 10.1177/0973408214548369 Ward, M. (2016) Review of the Enviro-Champs in mPophomeni. DUCT, Pietermaritzburg. Wright, T. (1988) Pep-up: A review of the Umgeni Valley Project evaluation process. Southern African Journal of Environmental Education , 7, 15-18 Centre for Environmental Education (2007) Ahmedabad Declaration: A Call to Action . Conference Proceedings, Centre for Environmental Education, Ahmedabad, India. United Nations Environment Programme (2004) Environmental Action Learning in Eastern and Southern Africa. UNEP, Nairobi.

to surface and become apparent to a wider circle of participants, through well designed Human Capacity Development (HCD) programmes, are proving highly effective. Such dawning realisations, from within the participants frame of reference, are more effective than externally derived and communicated messages. The HCD principles are reflected here since they help inform meaningful capacity building and can be applied as an evaluative lens when planning or evaluating efforts to enable more resilient societies and thus the efforts of the project to date. In conclusion UNESCO (The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation) has recognised that the Sustainable development Goals (SDGs) are unlikely to be achieved without a strong education component underpinning each of the 17 goals. Unless people are learning as part of addressing the SDSs there is little chance that the SDGs will be achieved in the longer term. For this reason UNESCO have launched the Global Action Programme (GAP) which seeks to provide capacity building support to the SDGs (Taylor, 2014). Over 80 institutions, world-wide, are now active GAP partners and all are seeking to inform the education component for the various SDGs. In this regard WESSA has been appointed as a GAP partner in the component ‘Transforming learning and training environments.’ One of the key tasks that WESSA has undertaken as part transforming learning and training environments has been to develop a booklet known as ‘Stepping Up to the Sustainable Development Goals.’ This resource outlines the choices that can be made for each of the SDGs. The resource also provides a year-planner enabling participants to align their work with the multitude of different days all selected to help profile and engage with such activities. The resource has been generously supported by USAID. For optimum effect, however, a resources such as the ‘Stepping Up to the Sustainable Development Goals’ will really come into its own when applied in the context of an Action learning approach. 1 The process to develop the 17 Sustainable development

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS

Jim Taylor WESSA Director: Environmental Education & Vivo Venter

Bushpigs Outdoor Education centre is a well-established non-profit education and conservation organisation situated in the foothills of the Waterberg Mountains in Limpopo Province. This organisation takes pride in providing first class quality environmental awareness, leadership development and outdoor adventure programmes of varying duration for schools and other groups. Established in 1987, this outdoor education centre boasts an impressive track record, with schools visiting for more than 23 years! It will be celebrating its 30th birthday in 2017. Bushpigs was incorporated into WESSA (Wildlife Environment Society of SA) in 2009, linking together with three other education centres in KZN. It is situated 20 km from Nylstroom/Modimolle

Established in 1987, Bushpigs Outdoor Education Centre boasts an impressive track record of many schools that have been visiting for over 23 years.

Anne Wals, Liz Taylor and Arjen Wals doing (touch – real-life encounters) a miniSASS water quality study in the KZN Drakensberg. Arjen Wal’s book on Social Learning has inspired much of the action learning being done in KwaZulu-Natal.

40 | African Wildlife & Environment | 64 (2017)

41 | African Wildlife & Environment | 64 (2017)