Environmental Humanities III – Environmental Humanities and sustainable development

About this programme

The course aims to emphasize the environmental humanist approach to sustainability, and to provide students with broad professional insights into natural and cultural environment management, as well as contacts with the surrounding society. Students will be trained to critically and constructively analyze different policy documents, definitions and practices to build more sustainable communities. There is an opportunity to examine how different environmental ethics and conservation ideologies affect the development of different natural/cultural environments. The course addresses how environmental humanities can be used to critically analyze and develop different approaches to building a more sustainable society. Questions of sustainable development are part of the social debate and the course will give students an insight into ongoing themes. Students will get an in-depth orientation on discussions about biodiversity, ecosystem services, intergenerational equity, planetary boundaries, and policy documents (e.g. UN 1987/Brundland Report, Paris Agreement). It examines dominant ideas and policy frameworks and concrete sustainability initiatives in natural and cultural heritage management from an environmental humanist perspective, including issues of landscape development and re-wilding. The course provides critical and creative approaches to environmental issues, where indigenous knowledge is emphasized. Here the students are allowed to take part in others' ways of integrating, analyzing and assessing complex situations, and are given in-depth knowledge of natural/cultural