ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to add to the growing literature on environmental social work education
which suggests the need for a fundamental rethinking of the humanistic values and
theories informing social work to embrace concerns relating to environmental degradation
and climate change. For the most part, social work’s interest in the environment to date
relates to human needs. Of most concern here is the over-representation of people in
poverty and subsistence among those impacted by deforestation and climate injustice.
However, even here the emphasis is on the human experience of environmental and
climate change when this is an outcome of human actions and structural inequalities. The
paper begins with an overview of the theoretical terrain of environmental thought before
examining issues in relation to perspective transformation and the implications for under-
and post-graduate curriculum development.
