The Minister for the Environment calls for "An environmentally sustainable Australia". CRES works with a vision of "Research and Education for Sustainability". Sustainability appears to be an assumed category, but is it? And how do concepts of sustainability come into being?

For our CRES Roundtable Discussion we started with the question: how do the humanities contribute to sustainability? We brought six CRES scholars in the humanities together to present and discuss a range of humanities perspectives on sustainability.

Only very recently have scholars started to consider broad social narratives of sustainability (Meppem & Bourke*). Our discussion took the narrative approach further in seeking to broaden the discussion, to offer fine-grained analysis and to pose unsettling questions.

The presenters were:
Libby Robin - History of western ideas about sustainability
Paul Faulstich - Perspectives from human ecology
Val Plumwood - Perspectives from philosophy
Diana James - Cross-cultural dialogue around sustainability
George Main - Perspectives from a cultural history of place
Deborah Rose - Perspectives from religious studies

Quentin Grafton chaired the Roundtable and Bob Wasson provided some critically engaged comments. We now post five of those presentations.

This Roundtable was a first step. Far from exhausting the conversation, we expect to broaden it and continue to enrich it.

Ideas from the day:

Libby Robin (history of science)
Western ideas about sustainability

Paul Faulstich (human ecology)
Human Ecology Perspectives on Sustainability

Val Plumwood (philosophy)
Sustainable what?

Diana James (indigenous perspectives)
Cross-Cultural Dialogue

Deborah Rose (religious studies)
Religious Studies - Perspectives on Sustainability

Final question:
Relation between sustainability and torture - how long can ecosystems withstand torture?

No attempt here to summarise wide ranging discussion. If discussants want to share comments, we are planning to put up a web-page with the papers and comments are welcome. Just send as MS-word attachments to libby.robin@anu.edu.au or deborah.rose@anu.edu.au.

* Meppem, T. & S. Bourke 1999 'Different ways of knowing: a communicative turn toward sustainability', Ecological Economics, 30, 389-404.