Welcome to the Environmental Learning Forum Website

What is the Environmental Learning Forum?

We are a group of individuals and organisations that are involved in education and training that is concerned with the environment and sustainability. The ELF provides us with ways of working together to avoid wasteful overlapping and reinventing of the wheel around ideas, resources and activities that so often happens in the diverse and sometimes fragmented community of environmental educatio n and sustainability practitioners. We have a strong focus on accredited education and training in the context of the National Qualifications Framework and hope to increase and support the development and delivery of accredited environment and sustainability education and training throughout South Africa.

In almost any field or sector of human endeavor, there are environment and sustainability considerations. The ELF recognises this and will contribute to the education and training responses to environment and sustainability issues and risks in all sectors, including for example: conservation and biodiversity, agriculture, local, provincial and national government, business and industry, civil society and formal education.

Read on to find out more about us and how you too can get involved!

Vision

Mission Statement

The Environmental Learning Forum supports the active collaboration and partnering of its members in the development and delivery of environment and sustainability related education and training.

Aims

The Environmental Learning Forum will:

•  Provide a meeting place for accredited education and training providers, emerging providers, employers, individual     consultants and civil society to form partnerships to be able to respond to environment and sustainability related     education and training opportunities arising out of the NQF such as skills programmes and learnerships.
•  Provide support to emerging providers for the accreditation process.
•  Provide a supportive community of environmental education and training practitioners committed to excellence and     collaboration around non-accredited courses such as in-house staff development or programmes with schools or the     general public.
•  Develop a protocol for members based on an ethic of collaboration, sharing and mutual support and a commitment to     developing and implementing locally relevant and contextualized environmental learning programmes.
•  Provide a forum for the sharing of experiences, lessons learnt, case studies and learning materials between its     members.
•  Seek to influence policy and delivery related to environment and sustainability education and training by interacting with     the relevant government departments and Sector Education and Training Authorities to ensure environment and     sustainability issues are attended to.

Scope of activities

While ELF is primarily about networking and partnerships in the context of accredited environment and sustainability related education and training, partnerships and activities will benefit non-accredited education and training initiatives too. The following are examples of the scope of education and training that falls within the interest of the ELF:

•  Environmental Education, Training and Development Practice
•  General environmental education programmes with schools, public, etc.
•  Conservation e.g. Community Based Conservation, Terrestrial conservation, etc.
•  Ecotourism and guiding
•  Environmental management
•  Environment and Sustainable Development (e.g. in local government, agriculture, industry contexts, etc.)
•  Environment and Social Justice (e.g. Community Facilitation in Society and Environment Interactions, gender issues,     etc.)
•  Environmental Policy, Legislation and Regulation Issues (e.g. public participation in environmental assessment)
•  International Best Practice

ELF Guiding Principles and Protocol

Environmental Learning Forum members subscribe to the following guiding principles/protocol.

ELF members will:

•  Actively contribute to sharing and collaboration around experiences, case studies, resources, learning materials,     methods, approaches, evaluations and any other activities or resources related to the development and delivery of     environment and sustainability education and training.
•  Agree to partner, when appropriate, with emerging providers and other ELF members in the development and delivery     of education and training courses or initiatives.
•  Commit to rigor, quality, consideration of context and ongoing evaluation in the development and delivery of education     and training.
•  Encourage a cross-sectoral and cross-disciplinary approach to environment and sustainability education and training.
•  Maintain a learner-centred approach to education and training with a real commitment to education and training that is     relevant, up-to-date and meaningful and that inspires and motivates the learner and develops appropriate skills,     knowledge and values for their career development and life-long learning path.
•  Agree to notify other members, through the ELF website notice-board, of any relevant tenders or contracts related to     environment and sustainability education and training. While collaboration and partnerships between ELF members in     responding to such tenders and contracts is encouraged, members are not obliged to do so and are free to submit     proposals and tender applications on an individual basis.
•  Agree to the development of a multi-stakeholder peer oversight mechanism, so that content and quality are monitored,     and where necessary, discussed, debated and agreed to. This will assist in matters of ethics, transparency and     accountability .
•  Agree that the ELF, as a stakeholder group concerned with environment and sustainability education and training,     engage with lobbying for better inclusion of environment and sustainability concerns across the NQF. Any such     lobbying activity undertaken by an ELF member in the name of ELF must be supported by the majority of ELF members.

To find out more about the ELF membership categories and benefits or to join, click here.