Social Learning in Environmental Management explores and expands the approaches to collective learning most needed to help individuals, communities, experts and governments work together to achieve greater social and ecological sustainability. It provides practical frameworks and case studies to assist environmental managers in building partnerships that can support learning and action on issues arising from human impacts on the life-support systems of our planet.

In this book, social learning frameworks and case studies address the three areas of collaboration, community, government and professional, in some detail. The resulting guidelines and their practical applications provide key source material for undergraduate and postgraduate professional education in the fields of social and environmental sciences, political science, planning, geography and urban studies, and also for professionals in environmental management.

About the author(s)

Meg Keen is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management and Development, Australian National University (ANU). Valerie A. Brown is Emeritus Professor and Director, Local Sustainability Project, School of Resources, Environment and Society, ANU. Rob Dyball is Lecturer at the Human Ecology Programme, School of Resources, Environment and Society, ANU.

Contents

Section I: A Social Learning Approach to Environmental Management * Social Learning: A New Approach to Environmental
Management * Traditions of Understanding: Language, Dialogue and Experience * Complex Adaptive Systems: Constructing Mental Models * Section II: Learning Partnerships with Communities * Communities’ Self-determination: Whose Interests Count? * Partnerships in Civil Society: Linking Bridging and Bonding Social Capital * Combining People, Place and Learning * Collaborative Learning: Bridging Scales and Interests * Section III: Learning Partnerships with Government * Linking Community and Government: Islands and Beaches * Changing Governments: Councils Embracing the Precautionary Principle * Felt Knowing: A Foundation for Local Government Practice * Section IV: Personal and Professional Learning * The Ethics of Social Engagement: Learning to Live and Living to Learn * Science Communication for Scientists: Reshaping a Culture * The Reflective Practitioner: Practising What We Preach * Section V: Learning for the Future * Lessons from the Past, Learning for the Future * Index