Second Pathway: Lifelong Learning for Environmental Stewardship

The second pathway is ‘Lifelong Learning for Environmental Stewardship’. This initiative centres around seeing humans as stewards for the planet. We have a collective responsibility to look after nature. In a world where digitalisation is prioritised and concrete jungles are being built. Our experiences with nature and ecosystems are increasingly limited and lost. This alienation and developing crises such as famine, water scarcity and conflicts between natural resources has led to ‘solutions’ being little more than business deals for large corporations. We’re missing investments in lifelong learning, starting in school curriculums. Indigenous leaders can teach us these lessons. Environmental protection and volunteering help youth learn and develop their relationship with the wild, which can help translate this relationship into art, film, community events, public green spaces and in the digital world. But it is not just the young, as different generations, religions, genders, ages and economic classes can all ‘reconnect’, ‘restore’ and ‘regenerate’ nature. This new set of ‘Rs’, replacing ‘reduce’, ‘reuse’ and ‘recycle’ will provoke a sense of belonging to nature and create a conscious awakening. In order for this shift to occur, the UNESCO Delors Commission created four pillars of learning: ‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’, ‘learning to be’ and ‘learning to live together’. Nature is the only life-support system we have so we need to reconnect with it and develop our collective responsibility towards stewardship so that future generations can enjoy the benefits of a vibrant ecosystem.