ABSTRACT
For many people, the current environmental crisis is directly related to the prevailing development model, which is unsustainable (Wals and Jickling 2002; Fernández-Crispin et al. 2005). This model is not only behind the divorce between humankind and nature, but also attempts to put the longest distance possible between them, generating the idea that human issues are outside nature (Gladwin et al. 1995). Within this nature-society confrontation, we are becoming less concerned about what nature can do to us (droughts, floods, etc.) and more concerned about what we have done to nature (Giddens 2002). In this view of humans undergoing a break with nature, Earth is considered as a sick mother
who needs to be protected. This position is taken from a modernist epistemology that cannot go beyond its own ethnocentrism (Descola and Pálsson 1996; Latour 2009). In order to overcome the socio-environmental crisis, various alternative development
models have been proposed. In this context, the term Sustainable Development (SD) appears, presenting a conceptualisation of development that is defined not only in material terms, but also in terms of the search for harmony with the environment for the benefit of future generations (Hopwood et al. 2005). However, sustainable development means ‘different things to different people in different contexts’ (Laine 2005). The changes proposed in the process of institutionalising SD and the solutions it proposes
result from three key concepts that come from areas of fundamental importance to modern society: efficacy (technical), profitability (economical) and objectivity (scientific) (Latour 2007). In this context, environmental education has been seen essentially as an environmental problem-solving and management tool to be used to ensure sustainable development (Sauvé et al. 2005). Development models that propose minimal adjustments (reforms) to the predominant development model, rather than substantial changes to our relationship with the environment, are known as Weak Sustainable Development (WSD) models (Haughton and Hunter 1994). Whereas development models that propose radical changes (transformation) in the way in which we relate to nature are grouped within the concept of Strong Sustainable Development (SSD) (Haughton and Hunter 1994).
