In the face of record-breaking droughts, bushfires and floods, with koalas now endangered in three states and Armidale listed as one of the most polluted places in Australia, it’s little wonder that building a more sustainable world is uppermost in many peoples’ minds. Mounting and worsening environmental challenges threaten not only the nature we hold dear but our very lives and wellbeing. But any personal agency in this time of crisis can seem insignificant.
I was driven to ‘do something’ after leaving high school, when I enrolled in a combined science and law degree. I thought it was the perfect combination for addressing environmental harm: the science providing the facts and the law the legal ‘firepower’ for generating change.
But I soon realised this would only get me so far. The threats posed by climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and water degradation, all require more effective responses than those currently deployed. The geography I was studying as part of my science degree covered human interactions with the environment, as well as the biophysical consequences, but I felt I also needed to learn about psychology, and why people thought and behaved in the way they did.
That kind of broad, multidisciplinary undergraduate program was not available in Australia at the time. But as soon as I became a lecturer at UNE, I set about developing one from scratch, and the Bachelor of Sustainability enrolled its first students in 2011. It was the first and remains the only degree that brings together the sciences, arts and humanities for a holistic understanding of sustainability.
Focusing as it does on social and human sustainability, as well as economic and environmental sustainability, the degree continues to make a leading scholarly and practical contribution. It supports the goals identified in UNE’s Strategic Plan Future Fit, through its emphasis on place-based education, personalised learning journeys, and building resilient, empowered and sustainable communities.
The degree is also globally significant. It contributes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by providing education for sustainable development and lifestyles, global citizenship, and appreciation of the role of cultural diversity in achieving these goals. Our students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to effect change at multiple scales.
Like my own research, the Bachelor of Sustainability relies on input from geographers, environmental scientists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, educators, historians, lawyers, archaeologists, Indigenous studies and peace studies scholars. Alone, we might have some of the answers; together, we can make sustainability a reality.
The power of such collaboration is in evidence across UNE, where we are working to improve landscape and resource management, as well as collaborating in multidisciplinary research, such as through the Environmental Humanities Research Network.
This all makes me optimistic for a more sustainable world. While tackling the environmental crisis can seem overwhelming when we operate in isolation, through collaboration and thinking creatively we can make a difference.
Professor Robyn Bartel
Geography & Planning, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, UNE
