ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: MOVING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FROM MARGINALITY TO MAINSTREAM

Abstract

Environmental education is one aspect of ensuring environmental sustainability. An important part ofenvironmental education is the mainstreaming of environment-related courses into school curricula, with the aimof developing students’ skills so that they can effectively enact change towards sustainability. The mainstreamingof environmental law into legal education curricula, and into tertiary education curricula in general, is one wayto achieve this aim. However, in legal education, environmental law has not been granted suitable recognition asan important course worthy of inclusion in the mainstream of legal education. This paper argues that in view ofthe growing global environmental problems, environmental illiteracy, and the continuing widespread apathytoward environmental concerns—especially in the Global South—it is crucial to integrate environmental law intothe curricula of legal and tertiary education. Specifically, it recommends that bodies responsible for the designand development of tertiary education curricula should make environmental law a required course at theundergraduate level for law students and some science students, so as to equip graduates with the appropriateskills and expertise to make and apply laws in support of environmental protection.