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After 100 years of academic Geography in South Africa, the emerging field of Environmental Assessment (EA) has occupied an important position vis-a-vis Geography. In this paper the contribution of Geography to practice and research in EA is investigated for South Africa. Firstly, Geography core competences are compared to the requirements for training Environmental Assessment practitioners, followed by reflection of the utility of Geography competences for Environmental Assessment research. It is evident that Geography competences are fundamental to EA practice, that EA skills are taught in some Geography curricula, and that the greater part of published EA research is produced by Geographers. We conclude that Geography as a discipline has embraced the environmental sustainability challenges by engaging actively in EA training and research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper offers a reflection on 15 years of policy change in the City of Cape Town aimed at fostering sustainability from the perspective of a City practitioner. The persistent continuation of unsustainable outcomes, despite ongoing policy reforms, is understood as a combination of the emergence of wicked problems, within a changing local government mandate, in the absence of a transformation of institutional structures, tools and approaches. While the approach to policy reform in Cape Town has focussed on reducing substantive uncertainty through its knowledge-based approach, we show that in the context of an expanding local government mandate, sustainability becomes an aspect of many departments’ directive resulting in strategic uncertainty. The untransformed traditional line-function-based structure of local government in turn works against integration between departments (fundamental for addressing non-linear wicked problems), thus promoting institutional uncertainty. In addressing this combination of strategic and institutional uncertainty, our findings indicate that integration has to happen in the policy stage in order for sustainability principles to be implemented in relevant departments; that implementation requires resourcing across the institution, and ought to be included in departments’ targets; and that competing and conflicting rationalities underpin the policy–practice gap. It is suggested that a first step in breaking down the strategic and institutional uncertainties would be to foster shared values through creating deliberative spaces within the City in which debate, discussion and learning can occur. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Today's development model promotes the exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences for the environment or the impact that the quality of the environment has on people's lives and livelihoods. Without a shift in current consumption and production patterns, a sustainable model of development is out of reach. The 1992 Earth Summit acknowledged the need to marry growth and environmental sustainability, but more than 20 years later the world still lacks concrete goals, commitments, benchmarks of progress and frameworks to secure benefits across social, economic and environmental dimensions. The global South is emerging as a green growth laboratory, with innovation and creativity to tackle these concerns. This article analyses these efforts in the context of public policy, and shows that both positive and negative patterns in practice and policy are emerging, which should be considered as broader global green growth efforts are further consolidated and the post-2015 development agenda is being defined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breadth and depth of the environmental crisis and the consequently wide and inclusive interpretations of 'sustainable development' has promoted a disparate range of academic responses encouraging a loose interpretation of environmental education and Education for Sustainable Development. This in turn reduces the capacity for the development of a clearly defined discourse and for a sufficiently robust debate conducive of effective change. This paper attempts to assess the current situation within environmental education in this respect, by means of an analysis of papers presented at the recent World Environmental Education Congress in Durban, South Africa (July 2007). By quantifying the use of specific terms and words used in presentations, the authors reveal evidence to suggest that there is not the degree of self critical analysis and academic rigour that the urgency of the environmental crisis might reasonably demand. On this basis a recommendation is made which should lead to greater precision in the identification of relevant themes and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]