Embedding Education for Sustainability (EfS) into Teacher Education in the South Pacific, Challenges and Opportunities

Introduction

Within the context of neoliberal global capitalist development, economic growth has led to the overstepping of planetary boundaries (PB). Scientists have warned that there are environmental limits within which humanity and nonhuman life can safely operate and that, if we exploit these, the consequences will be bleak. Climate change and biodiversity integrity are two of the core PBs whose fundamental importance to the maintenance of the Earth system is now an area of key concern. They cause irreversible damage to ecosystems and threaten the very conditions that make life on Earth possible.

Other environmental issues include reduction of the ozone layer, air and water pollution, desertification, and toxic waste. Such drastic environmental issues have profound effects – including food insecurity, poverty, loss of livelihoods, and alienation of indigenous peoples from their lands – that are unequally felt on a global scale. In the Pacific Island region, climate change is...