ABSTRACT
Young people are growing up in a society faced by increasing environmental concerns. Globally resources are being used up at an escalating rate. Habitats are changing, rainforests diminishing, deserts expanding, tens of species are lost each day, while the human population increases by more than a million each week. A far-reaching report on the state of the world’s wildlife states that the Living Planet Index, which measures more than 10,000 representative populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, has declined by 52 per cent since 1970 (WWF, 2014). Most people in the industrialised world are removed from the land and the rhythms of nature. Many Westernised people exist in an insulated, cossetted world protected from the vagaries of the outdoors.
