Sustainability Education in Practice: Appropriation of Rurality by the Globalized Migrants of Costa Rica
Abstract
An innovative framework for sustainability helps investigate the impacts of real estate development and educational attainment of newcomers; more specifically, landscape transformation due to ‘amenity migration’ into the Global South. We argue that sustainability research requires a de-categorization from mutually exclusive ‘human’ and ‘nature’ divisions, to refocus on intersections of multiple and complex socio-environmental processes, including the convergence of power relations inherent to development in the cultural landscapes of tropical mountains. Further, due to the explicit impact of amenity migration on the mountain environment, the ecological modernity of Costa Rica becomes less neatly categorical, requiring new educational frameworks linked with ecologically-minded social actors, which could be obtained by developing an educational pipeline for the humid tropics. Due to the normative nature of sustainability, we suggest that sustainability education is an essential component in influencing those value-laden choices central to environmental decision making, which are determined by well informed citizens and professionals trained with sustainability education approaches.
Brandilyn Gordon is graduate student in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia. 
Fausto Sarmiento is Associate Professor of Geography. He is also graduate faculty in the School of International Affairs. His research focuses on neotropical mountains, biogeography, political ecology and cultural landscapes. Dr. Sarmiento has been engaged in multidisciplinary research projects for comparative mountain ecology, Andean treeline dynamics and the overal farmscape transformation and global change in the Andes. Preliminary results of his work are summarized in "Desde la Selva hasta el Mar: Antología Ecológica del Ecuador", published in 1987 by the Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, Quito. A major contribution to Montology is his recent "Montañas del Mundo: Una Priordad Global con Perspectives Latinoamericanas" published in 2003 by Abya-Yala 
