COMMUNITY BASED ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Education for sustainable development is a process of capacity building for participation in civil society. Over recent years, the increasing challenge to identify missing factors to contribute towards sustainable resource management efforts has brought to light the significant role of community participation in sustainable development programme. On this backdrop this study was undertaken with the major objective to examine the effectiveness of community-based education in sustainable solution of environmental problems in a Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) area. A uni-tribe habitation situated in a TSP region of Odisha was purposively selected for the study. The important information pertaining to environmental awareness, interest and attitude; environmental issues; environmental practices etc. were collected from a cross-section of tribals of the habitation who constitute the key informants. The tools of qualitative research, such as interviews, observation, focus group discussions, documentary analysis are used to collect data from multiple sources. The data were analysed mostly using qualitative techniques, i.e. describing attitude, events, behaviour or relationships. The study was conducted in three phases: The first phase deals with designing community-based environmental programme based on the felt needs of the target group and available resources of the study area; the second phase is devoted to implementation of the programme with active people’s participation; and the third phase deals with assessing the impact of community-based environmental education programme in terms of community participation, utilization of community resources and, above all, sustainability. The study revealed that community-based environmental education seems to attain solution of environmental problems in the study area.