Education+for+sustainability+glossary

the intervention of human activities. understandings of culture as norms and values; culture as meaning; and culture as human activity. community, a country or the whole world. integrate both long-term and short-term economic, environmental, social and equitable considerations. ESD incorporates the principle of intergenerational equity—that the present generation should ensure that the health, diversity and productivity of the environment is maintained or enhanced for the benefit of future generations. all points in the local–global chain. our current decisions and actions. greater safety and enjoyment in the outdoors by focusing on the planning stages before doing the activity.
 * Basic human needs** The needs and rights of all people and societies for fair and equitable access to the resources they need for survival and to provide quality of life.
 * Biodiversity** The variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part. Biodiversity includes diversity within and between species and the diversity of ecosystems.
 * Carrying capacity** Conventionally defined as the maximum population size of a given species that an area can support without reducing its ability to support the same species in the future. In the human context, it is sometimes defi ned as the maximum ‘load’ (population [×] per capita impact) that can safely and persistently be imposed on the environment by people. See also Ecological footprint.
 * Conservation** Conservation is the careful use, protection and management of ecosystems, heritage and natural resources to ensure their long-term viability. It is different from ‘preservation’ which refers to maintaining a pristine state of nature as it is or might have been before
 * Cost-benefit analysis** A systematic quantitative method of assessing the feasibility of projects or policies when it is important to take a long view of future effects and a broad view of possible side effects.
 * Cultural heritage** Movable and immovable objects of artistic, architectural, historical, archaeological, ethnographic, palaeontological and geological importance and includes information or data relative to cultural heritage pertaining to Australia or to any other country.
 * Culture** A collective noun for the symbolic and learned, non-biological aspects of human society, including language, custom and convention. The concept of culture is often used synonymously with ‘civilisation’. However, it does have a range of meanings, including
 * Diversity** The quality of being different or varied. Diversity occurs in many aspects of our lives— culturally, socially, economically and biologically—and our lives would be impoverished without it.
 * Eco-efficiency** A strategy for maximising the productivity of material and energy inputs to a production process while also reducing resource consumption and waste production and generating cost savings and competitive advantage.
 * Ecology** The relationship between living things and their environments.
 * Ecological diversity** Refers to the variety of biological communities or ecosystems in a given area.
 * Ecological footprint (EF)** A measure of the consumption of renewable natural resources by a human population. A population’s EF is the total area of productive land or sea needed to produce all the crops, meat, seafood, wood and fi bre it consumes, to meet its energy consumption and to give space for its infrastructure. The EF can be compared with the biologically productive capacity of the available land and sea to see if the population is sustainable in the long term. The measure can be applied to an individual, a family, a school, a
 * Ecologically sustainable development** Ecologically sustainable development (ESD) involves decision-making processes that
 * Economic development** Improvements in the efficiency of resource use so that the same or greater output of goods and services is produced with smaller throughputs of natural, manufactured and human capital.
 * Ecospace** The total amount of energy, land, water and other resources that can be used regionally or globally without damaging the environment, disadvantaging the capacities of others to meet their basic needs, or impinging on the rights of future generations.
 * Education for sustainability** Education for sustainability includes many of the founding principles of environmental education but with a stronger human focus, recognising that fundamental human rights and social justice are just as essential to sustainable development as environmental sustainability.
 * Environment** Environment includes ecosystems and their constituent parts, natural and physical resources, the qualities and characteristics of locations, places and areas, the heritage values of places, and the social, economic and cultural aspects of these things.
 * Ethics** Our beliefs about what is right and wrong behaviour.
 * Heritage** The heritage value of a place includes the place’s natural and cultural environment having aesthetic, historic, scientifi c, social, or other signifi cance, for current and future generations.
 * Holism** The idea that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts in an ordered grouping. When applied to environmental thinking, it means that all factors—biophysical, social, political, geological and spiritual—should be considered when making a decision.
 * Human rights** The fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion, expression, peaceful assembly and association which ensure access to democratic participation and meeting basic human needs.
 * Indigenous** Indigenous people or things that are native to or exist naturally in a particular country, region or environment.
 * Indigenous knowledge** Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge that is unique to a culture or society. Other names for it include: ‘local knowledge’, ‘folk knowledge’, ‘people’s knowledge’, ‘traditional wisdom’ or ‘traditional science’. This indigenous knowledge is passed from generation to generation, usually by word of mouth and cultural rituals, and has been the basis for agriculture, food preparation, health care, education, conservation and the wide range of other activities that sustain societies in many parts of the world.
 * Interdependence** The relationships of mutual dependence between all elements and life forms (including humans) within natural systems, and the connections and links between all aspects of human lives and those of other people and places at a local and global level. It means that decisions taken in one place will affect what happens elsewhere.
 * Intergenerational equity** Intergenerational equity is a notion that views the human community as a partnership between all generations. It is the hallmark of sustainability—meeting the needs of the present generation while leaving equal or better opportunities for future generations.
 * Interspecies equity** Consideration of the need for humans to treat creatures decently, and to protect them from cruelty and avoidable suffering based on an understanding of humans as one of the many species on the planet and that all deserve respect.
 * Life-cycle analysis** A management tool for identifying the net fl ows of resource and energy used in the production, consumption and disposal of a product or service in order to leverage ecoefficiency gains.
 * Local–global links** The recognition that the consumption of a product or service in one part of the world depends on fl ows of energy and materials in other parts of the world and that this creates potential opportunities and losses economically, socially and environmentally at
 * Natural capital** The Earth’s natural resources and ecological systems that provide vital life-support services to society and all living things. The services are of immense economic value; some are literally priceless since they have no known substitute.
 * Natural resource accounting** The process of adjusting national accounts such as gross national product (GNP) to refl ect the environmental costs of economic production. Although methods are still being developed, natural resource accounting strives to determine the costs of depleting natural resources and damaging the environment.
 * Needs and rights of future generations** Considering the rights and needs of future generations whose choices may be limited by
 * Precautionary principle** The need to act judiciously and with an awareness of unintended consequences when we do not possess all the facts on a situation or when scientifi c advice on an issue is divided.
 * Quality of life** The standard of life that an individual enjoys. Quality of life goes beyond equating wellbeing with income. It includes such things as environmental health, the satisfaction of relationships with others and dignifying work.
 * Risk management** Risk management is the identifi cation, assessment and reduction of risks associated with the activities with which we are involved. As risk is an integral part of taking groups into an outdoor setting, risk management is an important way of ensuring
 * Social justice** The concept that all people should have equal access to services and goods produced in a global community. It includes ideas of environmental health, and gender, religious, sexual, racial and ethnic equality.
 * Steady-state economy** An economy in which the demands of resource consumption for economic growth and improving social wellbeing are in balance with resource supply and production and the Earth’s capacity to regenerate and maintain itself.
 * Stewardship** The responsibility of being a caretaker or custodian of the environment by managing activities with due respect for the health of that environment. It means taking care of what we have not only for ourselves, but also for those who come after us.
 * Sustainability** Sustainability is the quest for a sustainable society; one that can persist over generations without destroying the social and life-supporting systems that current and future generations of humans (and all other species on Earth) depend on.
 * Sustainable change** Understanding that there is a limit to the way in which the world, particularly the richer countries, can develop, and that the consequences of unmanaged and unsustainable growth are increased poverty and hardship and the degradation of the environment, to the disadvantage of us all.
 * Sustainable consumption** The use of services and related products to satisfy basic human needs and bring a better quality of life while minimising the use of natural resources and toxic materials as well as emissions of waste and pollutants over the life cycle of the service or product.
 * Sustainable development** Development that meets the needs of the people today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. To be sustainable, any use of resources needs to take account of the stock of resources and the impacts of its utilisation on the ecological, social and economic context of people today and in the future.
 * Sustainable production** Industrial processes that transform natural resources into products that society needs in ways that minimise the resources and energy used, the wastes produced, and the effects of work practices and wastes on communities.
 * Triple bottom line** At its narrowest, the term ‘triple bottom line’ is used as a framework for measuring and reporting on the performance of organisations against economic, social and environmental parameters. At its broadest, the term is used to capture the whole set of values, issues and processes that an organisation needs to address in order to minimise any harm resulting from its activities and to create economic, social and environmental value.