Abstract

AbstractThis chapter investigates the role of Environmental Citizenship within the twenty-first-century societal issues of human activities – urban development, transport systems, tourism, and cultural heritage. The first part of the chapter analyses the relationship between Environmental Citizenship, urban development, and cultural landscapes. Cities are home to the majority of the world’s population and are responsible for most of the resource consumption and waste production, which places them in the focus of Environmental Citizenship discourses. The issues of urbanisation and Environmental Citizenship are followed by issues of sustainable transport that, among others, have a goal of reducing transport disadvantage of marginalized social groups. Cultural heritage is identified as a new fourth pillar of sustainable development (along with environment, economy and society), and its role in Environmental Citizenship is explored. Sustainable tourism is reviewed using new approaches that have adopted elements of Environmental Citizenship and were introduced as a reaction to unsustainable mass tourism. Finally, the chapter presents certain practices of Environmental Citizenship within the investigated fields of expertise that could be promoted and implemented elsewhere.

Highlights

  • The concept of sustainability gradually became the central element of all agendas promoting social and economic development and environmental protection – the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) (UNCED 1992) and Millennium Development Goals (UN 2000), as well as outcomes of the conferences organised by the United Nations

  • There are several global frameworks related to the 2020 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Paris Agreement (UN 2015a), Sendai Framework (United Nation Office for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015), and New Urban Agenda

  • The implementation of the New Urban Agenda contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets, including SDG 11, to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

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Summary

Introduction

The concept of sustainability gradually became the central element of all agendas promoting social and economic development and environmental protection – the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (1992) (UNCED 1992) and Millennium Development Goals (UN 2000), as well as outcomes of the conferences organised by the United Nations (e.g. the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002; United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012). In 2015, the UN adopted a new key document – Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – whose aim is “to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of. In light of the complex nature of socio-environmental issues of the contemporary world, the chapter focuses on selected societal issues to show their interconnectedness and consequences. The chapter focuses in particular on the processes of urbanisation, transportation, and tourism as important social and societal factors of contemporary life. These can be seen as sources of opportunities for sustainability and as causes of serious socio-environmental problems. Environmental Citizenship represents the responsible pro-environmental individual and collective behaviour of citizens who act and participate in society as agents of change in the private and public sphere, on a local, national, and global scale (ENEC 2018)

Cities, Landscapes, and Cultural Diversity
Vital Issues of Transportation
Forms and Approaches of Tourism
Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage
Findings
Conclusion
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