Environmental Education in African Countries and Its Implementation in Lesotho

The usage of plastic is ubiquitous in all societies, continents, and seemingly within all economic areas. Due to its broad usage and beneficial features, plastic littering occurs extensively and increasingly in the environment. Such littering hampers not only animals but can affect the livelihood and health of humans as well as ecosystems. Despite the global threats through plastic pollution, even the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) refer only once specifically within indicator 14.1.1b to the reduction of plastic debris. This study focused on plastic usage and its dumping as an example. Environmental education (EE) and how it is implemented influences how such overarching challenges are and can be addressed. Overall, EE comprises a variety of different concepts and terminologies and is being taught in similar ways as education for sustainable development (ESD) or environmental education for sustainability (EEFS). Those two concepts focus significantly more on aspects of sustainability and especially on economic and social sustainability rather than ecological sustainability. In African countries, EE developed from the urge to improve the conversation about natural resources and is often incorporated into the geography curricula. Nevertheless, a variety of different programs and pilot school initiatives still exist. The role of indigenous knowledge or African epistemologies or in general the discrepancy of such as well as the syllabi and teacher training remain the major obstacles of EE in African education systems. Lesotho reflects the above-mentioned situation in many ways, prototypical and described as a case study.