Relationships between ecological restoration and environmental education: a critical view from Enrique Leff's conceptual framework

Abstract

Ecological restoration (ER) arises from Leopold's environmental ethics in the 1930s. Since about 1970, the discipline was consolidated with exponential growth in social movements and environmental policies. Analysis of the current and future development of the ER is currently on international and national journals, networks, societies, and within environmental public policies. In this last case, to such a degree, it is considered to be one of the rights of nature in the Latin American Constitutions, such as in Ecuador, Bolivia, and in the United Nations priority plan between 2021-2030. However, ER is poorly addressed in the field of environmental education. In this scenario, we consider it appropriate to confront some theoretical frameworks of environmental thought with the meaning and practices of ecological restoration and environmental education. With this in mind, based on a literature review and an interview with Enrique Leff, we present a critical view of the ER around three topics: a) A synthesis of an environmental conceptual framework of Enrique Leff; b) the historical development of ecological restoration, c) the relationships between Leff's conceptual framework, ecological restoration, and environmental education. We conclude that ER has “plasticity” to be included in different rational frameworks. Finally, we propose three historical periods of the ER: the ecocentric period, the scientific-technological period, and a new growing humanistic, creative and critical period in which education plays a central role.