Understanding Laudato Si’s View of Ecological Education and Well-Being from an Indigenous Relational Perspective

Abstract

Pope Francis, in the encyclical Laudato Si’, speaks of an “integral ecology” that combines environmental, economic, social, cultural and spiritual ecologies in caring for our common home. Pope Francis also sees the important role of environmental education in increasing awareness and creating a “culture of care” for our common home and promoting quality of life or well-being. While promoting environmental education, many researchers argue in favor of the effectiveness of the indigenous ecological knowledge and practices to protect and maintain natural environments. Indigenous ecological knowledge systems are based on a process of an intimate relational perspective and a sort of symbiotic relationships between people and the ecological system. These assumptions of indigenous relational perspective and symbiotic relationships demand a holistic or global consciousness, which involves that people recognize the importance of other people and of other species to the global community’s integrated and comprehensive well-being. Based on the premise that indigenous knowledge and ecological systems should be recognized as a foreground in ecology; as an antidote to globalization in sustaining the environment, and as an invaluable tool in providing better quality of life, this paper proposes an integral ecological education model of an “indigenous relational perspective of ecological education and comprehensive well-being.” In this integral ecological education model, specific emphasis is placed on interconnectedness between indigenous aspects of environmental knowledge, kincentric ecology, ecological conversion and harmony, and ecological spirituality in creating a ‘culture of care’ for our common home and in promoting our common good, quality of life, and well-being. In the light of Laudato Si’ and the proposed model, some concrete examples implemented at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan are elucidated.