The Indian ethos historically talk about promoting a mindset within people that is nature friendly and supports conservation. One of the most popular examples of Indian environmentalism was inspired by the Gandhian philosophy of non-violent resistance – the Chipko Movement (literally meaning ‘to stick to’) – a socio-ecological grass root movement of 1974 where the local women of Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand, motivated by rapid deforestation, manifested their stand to prevent the cutting of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the state forest department. By the 1980’s this movement had spread to the extent that it facilitated the formation of people sensitive forest policies that put a stop to the felling of trees, showing the influence that a united motivated people’s power can wield. Since the 1990’s, the focus of the Indian nation towards rapid economic growth has propelled the economy towards higher consumption of energy and resources. Somewhere along this track that ancient relationship of respect and awareness towards the environment has been forgotten.

India is seeking to strengthen her national security, economic prosperity, and environmental protection by making the transition to a clean energy economy. To achieve this, we must invest in developing our nation’s capacity to innovate and to implement this transition. This, in turn, requires recognising the value of a strong educational foundation and knowledge base, especially in relevant sciences, for fostering the innovation and new discoveries vital to our prosperous future. Participation for bringing about an attitudinal change requires mobilising a collective thinking, will and effort, and a call for public awareness. And finally, restricting further damage to the environment, effective implementation of environmental management and conservation programmes depends on education, awareness raising and training in the relevant areas. Without an understanding of how to conserve natural resources, and the compelling need to do so, few people would be motivated to participate actively in programmes on environmental conservation. Environment education and awareness, thus, assume critical importance.

To achieve environment education in India, especially at the community level, a strategy to overcome a number of challenges is required. With over a billion people and at least 17 major languages, with poverty and low literacy levels, with over 6,50,000 primary schools, with a rapidly increasing population, the development and environmental challenge is enormous.

India’s effective literacy rate has recorded a 9.2 per cent rise to reach 74.04 per cent, however compared with the global literacy rate of 84 per cent, India is lagging behind the global average. Additionally, India has the largest illiterate population of any nation on earth. But in spite of all the human pressures India continues to be rich in biodiversity. With over 1,27,000 species and a variety of habitats, India is one of the world’s mega biodiversity centres.

Keeping such challenges in mind, a number of forums were created to create awareness and educate the masses about the environment and concepts such as sustainability and conservation. Formal Environment Education Programme is an example of the same. In an order in 2004, the Supreme Court asked to implement and teach the syllabus prepared on environment as a compulsory subject in every school in every state. As a result of such efforts there is somewhat awareness on the current status of the environment. However, so far this has not translated into citizens becoming more environmentally sensitive as such awareness has not evolved into actions towards sustainability. To bridge the gap between awareness and action, the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) was established in 1984 in recognition of the importance of environmental education in India and its development strategy. It was envisaged to be a unique partnership between government and a non-governmental institution towards the current focus of environmental action.

Still we see, that despite some efforts, environmental education is not on cards for education in India. There is not yet an evidence of an overall, uniform increase in the environmental literacy in the community of students. The reasons can be attributed to (i) the per cent of schools across the nation actually making such changes remains small, and (ii) the piecemeal adoption of a few aspects of environmental education limits the positive effects of these changes on student learning. What will make a real difference in our nation’s environmental literacy is having a national authority set a benchmark and vision that define a true "green school," in order to bring more coherence to the laudable efforts now underway by individual states and schools. This benchmark should urge schools to seek to ensure that 100 per cent of their graduates have environmental literacy with an understanding of sustainable development and minimise or eliminate their environmental footprint and improve learning conditions. They can learn while using their own natural environment as a laboratory and a model of best practice for their host community. This programme would annually recognise and honour those schools that demonstrate high achievement in both student learning and eliminating or reducing their environmental footprint and improving learning conditions. In short, a green school should aim to create a healthy, environmentally and socially responsible living and learning environment for all students and staff.

At the community level, enhancing the level of training expertise of the teachers is required. Forums such as Non-Formal Environment Education and Awareness Project should be promoted that seek to encourage and enhance public participation in activities that intended to conserve, protect, manage and sustain the environment. The Government has undertaken various activities by using several media of communication to create awareness among people such as the National Environment Awareness Campaign (NEAC), seminars, workshops, training programmes, rallies, public meetings, camps, exhibitions, puppet shows and street theatre. In such an endeavour civil society organisations (CSOs) have a major role to play in assisting the government’s work in creating greater environment literacy for better protection and conservation. Development Alternatives, work in Himachal Pradesh is one such effort. Through Community Led Assessment, Awareness, Advocacy and Action Programme (CLAP) for Environment Protection and Carbon Neutrality in Himachal Pradesh, DA works to analyse the status and health of a number of Gram Panchayats with respect to their carbon foot print. Once the carbon report cards are submitted to the local panchayats, along with action points on how to go about developing in a more sustainable direction, these local governing bodies will have a strong information base to start an awareness campaign involving school children of the community.

It is early days for such activities and India has only just started to contemplate in the way forward towards living in an environmentally sustainable manner. The process of environment education fueled evolution has just begun. As more programmes such as CLAP run through the country, more bridges between education and action and personal responsibility to safeguard environment sustainability will be identified. However it is safe to say that for a large democratic nation such as this, environment education led and fostered by the community is the only logical way forward. q