2019 Annual Conference

Sustainability and Environmental Adult Education

Shared Concurrent Session (Approx. 12 or 20 minutes)

This session will explore how adult educators might bring divergent groups together to preserve shared resources.  The discussion will draw on a case study of First Nations fishers and non-Indigenous anglers in lower British Columbia.  Participants will explore strategies that invite oppositional groups to scrutinize their assumptions about each other.

This session will be of interest to adult educators who promote sustainability, environmentalists, Indigenous leaders, social justice activists, community organizers, postcolonial theorists, and anyone engaged in conflict resolution.

The need for environmental education grows increasingly urgent. Ecosystems face a variety of threats. In many instances, poor or marginalized communities are disproportionately affected. Consequently, we, as adult educators, cannot separate our understanding of environmental sustainability from the pursuit of social justice. This session will examine how educators might address these interwoven concerns. Participants will be able to:
• Evaluate definitions of environment and sustainability
• Analyze historical and cultural assumptions about environmental conservation
• Explore intersections between sustainability and social justice
• Propose strategies to bring antagonistic groups together in discussing sustainable practices

Promoting sustainable practice is no simple matter. Cleaning up a polluted neighborhood or saving endangered species requires cooperation between multiple stakeholders who may have divergent interests. An important task for environmental educators is to bring diverse stakeholders together. For this to happen, participants must have some level of mutual understanding. This is a difficult undertaking in the context of historic inequality.  Educators must understand these contextual issues. Moreover, they must develop ways of helping participants to look critically at their positionality.

           This session will present a case study to explore how adult educators might approach issues of ecojustice. The case study focuses on tensions between fishing groups in lower British Columbia, Canada.  As salmon fisheries have declined, Indigenous fishers and non-Native sport anglers have found themselves at odds in pursuing sustainable harvest strategies. The conference session will draw on a pilot study of these fishing groups to explore broader topics of environmental education and conflict resolution. The discussion will focus on these questions: (A) How might adult educators bring antagonistic groups together in considering how natural resources can be preserved for everyone’s benefit? (B)  How might adult educators address issues of social disparity and historic injustice that surround environmental problems?

The presentation will include the following components:

• A video depicting a Native American in an industrial landscape. Session participants will be asked to deconstruct their assumptions about the individual portrayed in the video.
• A brief explanation of fishing-related conflict in on the West Coast of North America.
• Examples of hostile discourse between Indigenous fishers and non-Native sport anglers. Session participants will be asked to identify cultural biases underlying comments on social media.
• A proposal to bring these groups together to discuss the well-being of people and salmon in the region.
• A discussion of how adult educators might overcome specific challenges.