Ecoliteracy – ecological literacy is the capacity to understand how ecological systems work and to use that understanding to live, learn, and act in holistic, wise and compassionate ways that sustain life and societies.
It is not just environmental awareness or literacy in new ecological terms, but a deeper recognition of our interconnectedness with the community of life, a perspective that has emerged in recent centuries in our modern culture through ecological and quantum science. Ecological insights therefore radically challenge the status quo of the dominant culture and the aims of current mainstream education.
At Haumea Ecoversity, we have pioneered holistic, transformative ecoliteracy education in Ireland since 2019, aligning with the holistic ecological turn in global education, not just in arts education.
Haumea Ecoversity is a modest post-doctoral, real-world-tested model of holistic eco-pedagogy, advanced by ecological artist | facilitator | educator Dr Cathy Fitzgerald (Ireland) with independent philosopher Dr Nikos Patedakis (California) since 2019.
Since 2019, we have supported 400+ professional creatives, changemakers, educators, curators, cultural researchers and leaders.
Our holistic model draws on emergent holistic thinkers, educators, organisations and Indigenous and Wisdom traditions that are informing the global shift in education toward more life-sustaining futures.
Haumea Ecoversity is part of the decade-old global Ecoversities Alliance re-imagining and re-enchanting education. We are one of 400 emergent models of situated holistic education arising in over 40 countries.
Haumea Ecoversity sees cultivating a caring, ecological worldview as foundational to help us expand our values so we can more fluently address intersecting social and environmental challenges and expand understandings of individual and collective wellbeing to include planetary and intergenerational wellbeing.
Since 2020, we have advocated the holistic vision and values-based wisdom through the people’s Earth Charter. Cathy is an accredited Earth Charter ESD Educator and Earth Charter Focal Point Communicator for Ireland.
In 2026, our strong argument for including ecoliteracy and the Earth Charter in Ireland’s Draft Nature Restoration Law Plan is rooted in this understanding: that addressing ecological collapse requires a foundational shift in how we educate, govern, and relate to the natural world.
A Paradigm Shift for Education
Eminent systems thinkers and educators Fritjof Capra and David Orr, who coined the term ecoliteracy in the 1990s, argue that it is about cultivating a holistic way of thinking and being—a paradigm shift for the modern world. This shift values all life as sacred and recognises that acting for ecological integrity (healthy habitats) means taking responsible care for generations to come. It includes acting for social and economic justice, democracy, non-violence, and peace.
Ecoliteracy, or systems thinking, radically challenges the human-first, economic priorities of the dominant culture. As cultural historian Thomas Berry realised, it calls for a reimagining of education, law, and cultural aims—from individual success to the well-being of the entire Earth community and future generations.
Transforming How We Learn and Live
Ecoliteracy is not simply about adding ecological principles to existing curricula or developing new standalone courses. It is also much more than ascribing sustainability goals to our activities or courses. It is about transforming how we think, value, teach, learn, and live—whole-of-institution and whole-of-society change so we live well for the community of life and future generations.
This immense cultural educational shift is foundational for systemic change to avert ecological and societal collapse. It is also a difficult shift, considering how human-first, colonial economic-first ideas have permeated the dominant culture over millennia and are still cultivated in our media, policy, and culture.
It therefore requires humility and effort to decolonise our current short-sighted, life-limiting trajectories and acknowledge that many of the principles we now recognise as essential for life-sustaining, circular living have long been practised by Indigenous cultures.
As the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated in 2026
Indigenous Peoples are bearers of cultures, knowledge, and ways of life that have sustained humanity for thousands of years. From the Amazon to Australia, and Africa to the Arctic, you are the great guardians of nature, a living library of biodiversity conservation, and champions of climate action.
Ecoliteracy also aligns with the growing recognition in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and complementary Global Citizenship Education (GCE), as well as international work on Inner Development Goals and the centrality of creativity to encourage inclusive community-wide engagement
Attending to our inner life and self-care (spirituality) is a key foundation of holistic education and skilful collective action. Such activities cultivate a cosmo-ecological worldview, deep belonging, health-giving connection, meaning, purpose, and pro-social skills for working well collectively towards common aims—for ourselves, all people, and the places and communities that sustain us.
Creativity Inclusively Activates Cosmo-Ecological Wisdom
Haumea Ecoversity Founder – Facilitator Dr Cathy Fitzgerald’s journey toward ecoliteracy began in the mid-90s, when she began exploring creative ecological art practices to reflect, practice, and advocate new national policy for new-to-Ireland, Close-to-Nature continuous cover forestry over colonial-industrial clearfell tree plantations.
This was to reimagine forestry for economic, but most importantly, environmental and social benefits – for collective, planetary and intergenerational wellbeing.
This experience, which informed her eco-social creative practice PhD, The Ecological Turn (National College of Art & Design, Ireland), reinforced the idea that ecoliteracy is fundamentally life-affirming creative storytelling—sharing, as eminent ecological cultural historian Thomas Berry recognised, ‘a new story’—wiser ecological stories arising from acting for ecological integrity in our home places and communities. Relational creative practices, in the diversity of creative practice, foster community understanding that thriving interdependence nurtures individual wellbeing, social resilience, and trust—all vital as eco-social challenges accelerate.
Cathy Fitzgerald has drawn on the social power of pioneering creative-infused community practices to attend to damaged habitats, such as those of the late ecological artists Professors Helen and Newton Harrison, who modelled holistic transformative practices.
The Harrisons’ work remains pioneering in contemporary art practice and most importantly aligns with the global shift in education, as Cathy demonstrated in her 2023 Earth Charter article connecting her doctoral and post-doctoral review of ecological creative practice with sustainability pedagogy. She argues that participatory, dialogical, creative place-based approaches—working with communities over years—embody what holistic ecoliteracy education fosters.
From her work reviewing and facilitating ecoliterate creative practitioners over several decades, Cathy demonstrates how everyone’s inherent creativity is an essential element in fostering this new holistic model of education and circular living for life-sustaining societies.
Ecoliteracy for creatives involved in community engagement for wetlands in Ireland
Cathy Fitzgerald’s contribution in providing ecoliteracy for Arts Offices and Creative Ireland programmes, to upskill creative professionals in Counties Carlow, Kildare, Meath, Wexford, Roscommon and Kilkenny, was noted in this new 2026 guide, launched by Minister Christopher O’Sullivan at the Irish Museum of Modern Art.
Cathy and her trusted co-facilitators have worked to bring ecoliteracy training and holistic education with the Earth Charter into Irish Local Authorities since 2022.
