Lifestyle changes necessary for sustainable development says Macquarie
expert
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Daniella
Tilbury
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A paper written by a Macquarie environmental education and sustainable
development expert is set to put sustainable development back on
the agenda at next year's United Nations Rio +10 Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg.
Senior lecturer in Macquarie's Graduate School of the Environment,
Dr Daniella Tilbury's paper will form the basis of a declaration
to be signed by world governments at the 2002 Johannesburg Summit.
Tilbury says that the paper has already been circulated to experts
and authorities around the world and received much positive feedback.
If world governments agree to Tilbury's recommendations, the summit
will renew its commitment to education that supports processes for
community development and social change towards sustainable development
in both developing and developed nations.
"The Johannesburg Summit is going to be very important and will
put sustainable development back on the agenda," says Tilbury, who
is currently the Chair of Education for Sustainable Development
for the IUCN (World Conservation Union) Commission in Education
and Communication.
The summit at Johannesburg is a follow-up to the 1992 Rio de Janeiro
summit where there was international agreement on various global
environmental and sustainable development issues and strategies.
Tilbury's paper was commissioned by the UNESCO Non-Government Organisation
Liaison Committee, the body responsible for promoting education
for sustainable development after the 1992 Rio Summit.
While the UN agreements and resolutions of major conferences held
since 1992 acknowledge that education is the key to a sustainable
future, Tilbury's paper raises concerns that recent efforts have
failed to address: unsustainable consumption and lifestyle patterns
in developed nations.
"We have not come far at all. Education for sustainable development
is a misunderstood concept. It is a process of change and means
changing lifestyle choices and professional actions," Tilbury says.
Formal education has received much of the attention from governments
but few initiatives have been targeted at government or corporate
organisations, indigenous peoples or the scientific and technological
communities. The result, she argues, is that many see education
for sustainable development as solely a curriculum process rather
than a social process.
However, UNESCO International Associations of Universities has
prioritised its efforts towards educating for sustainable development.
There has also been a call by university groups for education to
be identified as a major group within the UN Commission for Sustainable
Development.
According to Tilbury, education is also critical to strengthening
governance and global partnerships which build institutional support,
allocate rights and enforce responsibilities towards sustainable
development.
One of the paper's recommendations is that the Summit seek the
commitment of national governments to setting up National Commissions
on Sustainable Development (NCSDs) with representatives drawn from
government, non-government organisations, community and corporate
sectors.
While many countries have begun to establish national commissions
for sustainable development, Tilbury says that Australia has not
even begun. She is a member of a national group currently lobbying
the Australian government to make moves to address these issues.
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