The protection of the environment is one of the greatest priorities of our time: everywhere in the world legislations and policies aimed at safeguarding the environment are emerging to protect human health, biodiversity and the wellbeing of future generations.
Despite the proliferation of laws and legal instruments to combat environmental degradation, human beings continue to exceed ecosystem limits, thereby jeopardising the health and well-being of present and future generations and threatening the integrity of the planet’s biodiversity. While cooperation is an essential feature to address global environmental agenda, many continue to see what has been defined as a North-South Divide in International Environmental Law. Therefore, fostering the cooperation, dialogue and mutual learning towards the reconciliation of that divide is crucial.
To respond to these challenges, EVE has brought together a network of both Environmental Law and Environmental Humanities experts, from the European Union and Africa, in order to develop an innovative teaching experience which will inspire students to reflect critically and unconventionally on the notion of environment, to think out of the box and come up with creative solutions.
This teaching experience is developed in two modules open to the undergraduate students of the School of Political Science C. Alfieri of University of Florence; each counting 21 teaching hours: Exploring EU and African Environmental Law and Policy: challenges and synergies to introduce students to the main pillars of Environmental Law and Policy, by adopting a dialogic perspective between European Union and Africa framework and actions of environmental protection, in search for common challenges, synergies and connections. Thinking through Environment in the Social Sciences and Humanities: Euro-Africa Conversations to reflect on the ‘vocabulary’ of the environment: do we have shared definitions of nature and environment? What the histories of the environment can add to the way we perceive environmental challenges? Where do the political drivers that shape concerns around environmental emergencies come from? What is the place of colonial thinking, and what about the decoloniality discourse? Are environmental issues ultimately linked to justice issues? Innovative teaching: both modules are designed to actively engage students in working on concepts, visions and case studies and reaching out to non-academic audiences, through the use of cartoons. The modules end with a contest to award the two best cartoons created by the students.
