This article explores restoration-based education (RBE) as a developing field that seeks to integrate ecological restoration with environmental education. The researchers address the challenge that while both restoration and education are well-established fields with significant academic, political, and public interest, their integration has been limited due to their different traditions in natural and human sciences.
The study emphasizes that successful RBE requires educators and restorationists to establish clear philosophical positions, particularly regarding sustainable development and anthropocentrism. While some approaches frame restoration within business-based solutions and sustainable development frameworks, others draw from post-development perspectives including indigenous concepts like "buen vivir" and radical ecological democracy. This philosophical positioning is crucial because it determines whether restoration serves primarily economic interests or broader ecological and social goals.
The authors highlight the complexity of environmental education as a field encompassing at least 15 different currents, from traditional naturalist and conservationist approaches to more recent feminist, ethnographic, and socially critical perspectives. This diversity means that environmental education extends far beyond simple knowledge transmission to include politics, culture, emotions, and relationships with nature. Understanding this complexity is essential for creating meaningful integration with restoration practices.
The research presents two detailed case studies of RBE implementation. In Argentina's Patagonia, researchers worked with marginalized communities to address desertification through a four-stage process that began with analyzing historical territorial occupation and indigenous displacement, then moved through informal and formal environmental education to achieve restoration and sustainability outcomes. In Colombia's Amazon region, the program focused on training "local scientists" who could work with their communities to understand socio-environmental conflicts and develop new restorative cultures.
Both case studies demonstrate key principles of effective RBE: recognizing learners as active participants rather than passive recipients, valuing local and indigenous knowledge alongside scientific expertise, addressing social and political dimensions of environmental problems, and creating opportunities for practical, hands-on restoration work. The educational approaches emphasized dialogue, critical thinking, and the development of what the authors call a "teacher-student-nature relationship" that allows learners to listen to nature's responses to restoration interventions.
The article concludes that RBE represents a promising but still developing field that requires continued work to fully integrate the traditions of restoration science and environmental education. The authors emphasize that environmental education should be viewed not as a complement to restoration projects, but as a foundational element that can guide the entire restorative process toward more socially and ecologically meaningful outcomes.
The Bottom Line
This article examines restoration-based education (RBE) as an emerging transdisciplinary field that integrates ecological restoration with environmental education. The authors argue that successful integration requires three key conditions: establishing clear positions on sustainable development and restoration purposes, recognizing the complexity of environmental education as a field with diverse currents and approaches, and understanding the main principles of RBE. Through case studies from Argentina's Patagonia and Colombia's Amazon region, the research demonstrates how RBE can create meaningful educational experiences that go beyond traditional environmental education by engaging local communities as active participants in restoration processes. The findings suggest that RBE offers a promising approach for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, but requires careful attention to philosophical foundations and pedagogical approaches that honor both scientific knowledge and local wisdom.