Research-Based

งานวิจัย : Australian Landcare: A Grass-roots Environmental Education Movement

โดย : รองศาสตราจารย์ ดร.คงศักดิ์ ธาตุทอง

บทคัดย่อ ภาษาอังกฤษ

Abstract: Amongst groups that campaign against environmental degradation all over the world, one of the environmental movements is Australian Landcare. Landcare is an environmental movement aimed at developing sustainable use of natural resources for both present and future generations. Based on local people’s need, it is a “bottom-up" environmental problem-solving project that was initiated by local communities. It emerged from the activities of farmers who joined together to solve their own problems on their farms, including soil erosion, rabbit over-population, and weed invasion. Later on, the government helped the farmers deal with these problems. Solving the farmers’ problems solves environmental problems at the same time. Recently, Landcare has been dealing not only with environmental problems on farms, but also with almost any kind of environmental problem in the country. Many environmental projects have emerged under the umbrella of Landcare. Landcare is an excellent environmental management model for sustainable development. Moreover, it can be argued that Landcare education also supports the idea of education for the environment. To introduce a project like Landcare in Thailand would not be easy. There are constraints such as the low educational level of farmers, a lack of strong support from the government, and the Thai people’s general lack of good teamwork skills. It is argued here that the idea of Landcare education is an important aspect of education for the environment and that all professional development institutions and teacher training programs should apply Landcare ideas to all levels and disciplines of the educational curriculum in Thailand.