ABSTRACT
The World Conservation Strategy (WCS) (IUCN, 1980) documented growing recognition that traditional methods of promoting environmental conservation — including public awareness of the problematic issues, the development and growth of conservation organizations, legislation and land set aside and protected — were insufficient to counter the detrimental impact of human activity on the planet. It strengthened and legitimized the growing notion that sound environmental management must be integrated into the continuing process of human, social and economic development. However, it also identified that the current dominant models of socio-economics were flawed by inappropriate attitudes and values towards the environment. The WCS called for changes in these attitudes and values, and advocated ‘education’ as the means by which these should be achieved. This analysis and exhortation has been repeated ever since, notably in Agenda 21 and the revised version of the WCS, Caring for the Earth (IUCN, 1991), and picked up by the environmental NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) as their main educational raison d’être.
