SUMMARY G LO B A L E D U C AT I O N M O N I TO R I N G R E P O R T 2 0 1 6 FI GURE 1 : High levels of human development have come at an ecological cost Total ecological footprint by Human Development Index, by country, 2012 10 An ecological footprint of less than 1.7 global hectares per person, given current population and available productive land and sea area (biocapacity), is sustainable; the earth can replenish a country’s resource use. Singapore’s high HDI (0.91) is associated with a large ecological footprint per capita (7.97). This means that people in Singapore, although living a good life, also have high resource demand. Australia 8 Singapore 7 Rep. of Korea 6 5 Unsustainable ecological footprint 4 World biocapacity per person in 1961 3 Caucasus and Central Asia Eastern and South-eastern Asia Europe and Northern America Latin America and the Caribbean Northern Africa and Western Asia Pacific Very High HDI 9 Ecological footprint (hectares per capita) The Human Development Index (HDI, by the UN Development Programme) measures a country’s average achievements in health, knowledge and standard of living. An HDI value of 0.8 or more indicates very high human development. High HDI World biocapacity per person in 2011 2 1 0 Sustainable ecological footprint 0 Eritrea 0.2 Southern Asia 0.4 Timor-Leste 0.6 0.8 Human Development Index Sub-Saharan Africa Source: GEM Report team analysis based on data from Global Footprint Network (2016). In India, for example, following a Supreme Court ruling, government agencies in 2003 started producing extensive content on environmental education, which has resulted in over 300 million students in 1.3 million schools receiving some environmental education training. Environmental education encourages sustainable lifestyles, waste reduction, improved energy use, increased public transport use, support for pro-environment policies, and environmental activism. In Estonia and Sweden, where sustainable development is part of the curriculum, students were more likely than their peers in countries without such content to give correct answers on environmental science in the 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment. Some schools have adopted a ‘whole school’ approach to environmental education. Research on such schools in England (United Kingdom) show improvements in the schools’ ethos and students’ health and learning, and reductions in the schools’ ecological footprints. TRADITIONAL APPROACH: LEARNING THROUGH COMMUNITY Traditional – especially indigenous – knowledge in such areas as agriculture, food production and conservation has played an important role in environmental sustainability for centuries. Numerous examples of indigenous communities’ traditional land management practices are becoming recognized globally as excellent approaches for conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem processes. In Colombia, the Council of Sustainable Settlements of the Americas is putting into practice the concept of buen vivir (living well), which recognizes the contribution of indigenous communities, for example in urban eco-barrio projects, traditional sustainable villages and sustainability education centres. 12 1