The interim landfills issue : educating the grassroots movement

Abstract

This qualitative study consists of a critical analysis of the Interim Landfill Grassroots Movement. The study aimed to investigate environmental education trends in our country and evaluate the effectiveness of the methods employed by the grassroots movement in their quest to reach the desired objectives. The study examines how local councils and environmental NGOs can be instrumental in supporting environmental education. By adopting a historical approach as our primary tool of research, supplemented by various interviews with the key persons involved, we explored how non-formal and informal environmental education was utilized by local councils and NGOs to empower communities to participate in the decision making of this environmental issue. The main findings and recommendations of the study include the importance that environmental information is made publicly available and that this is fully understood by all those concerned including the government. The study stresses that effective planning can be achieved if government acknowledges NGOs and grassroots movements as partners in the democratic decision making process and refrains from unilateral positions. In the absence of this consultation and consensus building, confrontation and conflict result. It is essential that NGOs and other environmental organisations collaborate with local councils in the setting up of community based environmental education programmes that prepare citizens to be proactive rather than reactive as regards environmental action. The study also revealed that grassroots movements tend to form and act in confrontation to a specific problem or issue but afterwards, become inactive or disappear from the scene once their mission has been accomplished.