International environmental NGOs' rising role in education for sustainability through ecological citizenship : the Hong Kong case

Abstract

Education is supposed to advance humans towards the common good and a better future, but the present environmental education in trend has largely failed to inculcate a social perception of nature as is required in education for sustainability. The world is facing an ecological crisis as a result of unrestrained exploitation of natural resources and pollution; while the sustainability movement remains sluggish as prevailing citizenship education in the national context continues to serve dominant values through the top-down approach and fall behind actual needs in reforming societies. Outdated thinking of citizenship and the absence of civil society involvement are argued to be the main factors slowing down education for sustainability. Ecological citizenship as an emerging concept to address world sustainability suggests a stronger role to be played by the civil society particularly in renewing the political obligations of citizens towards their unsustainable relationship with nature. A paradigm shift in educational values towards critical pedagogy should encompass environmental justice and ecological footprint to reflect the global dynamics of environmental issues today. International environmental non-government organizations can capture opportunities of this rising role, as affirmed by the Hong Kong case analyzing the work of Greenpeace and WWF and views of local key stakeholders taking part in this movement. Through their usual environmental governance work in the forms of advocacy and stakeholder engagement, international environmental non-government organizations can foster more community-based sustainability education in formal, non-formal and informal settings through the more bottom-up tripartite approach of government-business-civil society.