ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: MOVING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW FROM MARGINALITY TO MAINSTREAM

Abstract

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