Local Community Initiatives in Education for Sustainable Development: Mexican Experience

Abstract

The article shows the importance of local community initiatives in education for sustainable development in the United Mexican States. Mexico hosts a rich biodiversity but at the same time there exists a number of serious threats to its conservation (low income, poaching etc). A number of examples is given to demonstrate the role of local communities in strengthening sustainability of natural ecosystems along with social (raising quality of education) and economic effects (intensification of eco-tourism, revitalization of traditional crafts and agricultural practices) which overall aligns with the principles of sustainable development. The cases discussed are projects that have both conservation and education components: maintaining a population of American crocodiles (the town of La Manzanilla, Jalisco), community cooperation around the “Cave of the Hanging Snakes” (Kantemo, Quintana Roo). Another characteristic of those projects is the attention to study and popularization of traditional sustainable practices: meliponary, milpa (combined cultivation of corn, beans, and pumpkins), preservation of agricultural biodiversity and other. The article also presents the authors’ project to develop an international school in the immediate vicinity of Tamarindo private nature reserve where education for sustainable development will be one of the key features of the curriculum. The research is based on a comparative pedagogical approach that allows to analyze the tendencies in development of educational practices in specific countries, identify general trends and national contexts with reference to social and economic factors, as well as to identify the limitations of “transplanting” of foreign practices into the national ground.