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The Earth Charter has become a dated guiding document for the field of environmental education. When the document debuted in 2000 as the global "framework to guide the transition to a sustainable future" (Earth Charter Initiative, n.d.-a, para. 2), the writers promoted it as a solution to environmental problems that incorporated voices of a wide spectrum of diverse communities from across the globe. The Earth Charter is a broad and ambitious document, designed to encourage action at local, national, and international levels (Earth Charter Initiative, 2009). Using critical discourse analysis methodology and social justice lenses, this paper examines the value of the Earth Charter as an educational tool as we enter the Anthropocene, a new geologic period in which our species is the largest force influencing and changing the planet (Olvitt, 2017). We argue that the Earth Charter reinforces dominant oppressive myths of sustainable development and excludes concerns voiced by marginalized populations. In perpetuating problematic narratives, we question the Earth Charter in its current form as a relevant and useful framework for informing environmental education 20 years after its publication. We suggest a method for updating the Earth Charter with social justice framing, using democratic, co-creative tools that are accessible to communities around the world, in their own languages.

As the world around us changes, so too do the bonds that people have with their environment. These environmental bonds, or Senses of Place (SoP), are a key component of social-ecological systems (SESs). SoP has social, psychological and economic value, it impacts how people use and behave in an environment and how they respond to changes such as those caused by anthropogenic pressures. Despite this connection, the consideration and application of SoP in the management of SESs remains relatively under explored. This study takes the first step in addressing that gap by investigating the perceptions of researchers in the field. We achieve this by interviewing SoP researchers from around the globe to elucidate whether they see SoP as valuable for the management of SES. We also identify their perspectives on the barriers to, and enablers of, incorporating SoP into policy and management. Results show while researchers do see the value in incorporating SoP into policy, there are a range of barriers that impact this, most notably, the intangible nature of the phenomena and shortcomings of current governance systems. Results also identify a range of enablers that could improve the incorporation of SoP into policy–particularly through improved engagement and communication between stakeholders. These findings represent a first step in the formal inclusion of this social value into the management of SES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, wildfires are increasing in extent, frequency, and severity. Although global climate change is a major driver and large-scale governance interventions are essential, focusing on governance at smaller scales is of great importance for fostering resilience to wildfires. Inherent tensions in managing wildfire risk are evident at such scales, as objectives and mandates may conflict, and tradeoffs and impacts vary across ecosystems and communities. Our study feeds into debates about how to manage wildfire risk to life and property in a way that does not undermine biodiversity and amenity values in social-ecological systems. Here, we describe a case study where features of adaptive governance emerged organically from a dedicated planning process for wildfire governance in Australia. We found that a governance process that is context specific, allows for dialogue about risk, benefits, and trade-offs, and allows for responsibility and risk to be distributed amongst many different actors, can provide the conditions needed to break down rigidity traps that constrain adaptation. The process enabled actors to question whether the default risk management option (in this case, prescribed burning) is aligned with place-based risks and values so they could make an informed choice, built from their participation in the governance process. Ultimately, the community supported a move away from prescribed burning in favor of other wildfire risk management strategies. We found that the emergent governance system has many features of adaptive governance, even though higher level governance has remained resistant to change. Our study offers positive insights for other governments around the world interested in pursuing alternative strategies to confronting wildfire risk [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective governance of social‐ecological systems (SES) is an enduring challenge, especially in coastal environments where accelerating impacts of climate change are increasing pressure on already stressed systems. While resilience is often proposed as a suitable framing to re‐orient governance and management, the literature includes many different, and sometimes conflicting, definitions and ideas that influence how the concept is applied, especially in coastal environments. This study combines discourse analysis of the coastal governance literature and key informant interviews in Tasmania, Australia, demonstrating inconsistencies and confusion in the way that resilience is framed in coastal governance research and practice. We find that resilience is most often framed as (1) a rate of recovery from disturbance or (2) the process of acting in response to, or anticipation of, a disturbance. A third framing considers resilience as an emergent property of SESs. This framing, social‐ecological resilience, accounts for multiple configurations of SES, which necessitates adaptation and transformation strategies to address changes across temporal and spatial scales. Coastal managers recognised the value of this third framing for governing coastal SESs, yet the confusion and inconsistency in the literature was also evident in how they understood and applied resilience in practice. Expanding the use of social‐ecological resilience is essential for more effective coastal governance, given the dynamics of coastal SESs and the intensity of social, economic, and environmental drivers of change these systems face. However, this requires addressing the unclear, confused, and superficial use of resilience‐oriented concepts in research and policy discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]