Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability, Biophilia and Ecophilia

Abstract

Environmental education and education for sustainability have tended to be largely anthropocentric and to focus on collective or communal interests, rather than on individuals, whether human or non-human. The communitarianism and holism that characterise most manifestations of environmental concern in society and education also pertain to biophilia and ecophilia, which have both been defined as “nature-friendliness or love of nature”. In a more differentiated understanding “biophilia” would pertain only to animate nature, whereas “ecophilia” could be taken to cover both animate and inanimate nature. They share with sustainability a holistic orientation, and therefore have little to say about individual natural existents, like animals.