Section 1 - Understanding sustainable development from Bolivia
In this section we introduce the concepts of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘territory’ and understand them using geography - within the context of Bolivia specifically. In Section 1, we learn about Bolivia’s physical and political geographies to identify some challenges for sustainable development.
In this section, we introduce resource extraction and explain how it is implicated in politics, citizenship and development in Bolivia. We focus on one conflict over road building and gas extraction in a Bolivian indigenous territory, the Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Secure), TIPNIS, to ask what sustainability means in and from this place.
Section 3 - The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and global sustainability
In this final section, we learn about the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a new global development agenda, including for the UK. In asking what Bolivia teaches us, we focus on two key insights:
1. Although the SDGs are for all, environmental degradation is caused by some more than others, the impacts of environmental degradation are experienced by some more than others, and some people live more sustainably than others.
2. The SDGs are one strand of efforts to address climate change and do not reduce the need to engage with how issues of sustainability shape our everyday lives.