Environmental Justice (FutureLearn)

Understand environmental injustices

This free online course will help you understand how injustice is a common feature of many environmental problems. Over 10 weeks, we’ll look at deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change and other environmental issues, asking questions such as:

- Can we manage tropical forests to increase timber revenues and carbon stocks, while ensuring that the people who live in them can fulfil their own subsistence needs and vision of a healthy ecosystem?

- How can protected areas strike the right balance between contemporary global interests in species conservation, local interests, the needs of future generations and rights of nature?

We’ll show that sustainable environmental management requires attention to justice - that we need to strike the right balance between the needs, interests, rights and aspirations of various stakeholders today, and those of both nature and future generations.

Learn with UEA’s Global Environmental Justice Group

You’ll learn with the University of East Anglia’s Global Environmental Justice Group

- Prof Adrian Martin

- Dr Vasudha Chhotray

- Dr Iokine Rodriguez

- Dr Oliver Springate-Baginski

- Dr Nicole Gross-Camp

- Dr Gareth Edwards

- Dr Brendan Coolsaet

- Dr Teresa Armijos

an interdisciplinary mix of scholars interested in the links between social justice and environmental change.

Through a series of films shot in Africa, Asia and Latin America, you’ll meet environmental activists and find out how justice can be a powerful motivator for environmental action.

You’ll share your own experiences with other learners around the world, thinking about how you can put academic theory into practice, through course discussions, quizzes and assignments.

Syllabus

Week 1: Conceptions of environmental justice

Week 2: Politics of environmental justice

Week 3: Local perspectives of environmental justice

Week 4: Global perspectives of environmental justice

Week 5: Practical approaches to environmental justice research

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

- Explain the dimensions of environmental justice

- Evaluate different ideas of justice

- Investigate local environmental justice struggles

- Apply an environmental justice framing to global challenges

- Explore practical techniques to empower marginalised communities

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for people who are already working on environmental problems or are familiar with environmental issues. It seeks to address environmentalists around the world although a background on international development will be useful.