Education is crucial for conserving biodiversity, enabling its sustainable and equitable use, and mainstreaming it in other policies. We depend on biodiversity in multiple ways, yet public awareness of its importance is scarce. The role of biodiversity in sustaining ecosystem services, such as in producing clean water and food; regulating and adapting to climate change; supporting nutrient cycles, maintaining health, and many other social and cultural benefits, are not well known. Instead, the natural world is too often perceived as a resource to be exploited via activities such as logging, mining or poaching of wild animals, spurred by the belief that ecosystem services are free and therefore without value. Whilst concern for protecting the environment is prevalent among citizens in many regions, including Europe, there is a considerable gap between concern and taking action, which can be attributed to low levels of understanding of environmental issues, as well as lack of attention for social, emotional or behavioural learning.

Increased urbanisation has weakened our connection with the natural world, and played an important role in reducing public awareness on biodiversity. About half the world's people live in urban areas with increasingly less opportunities for direct contact with nature. This ongoing alienation or 'extinction of experience' has two main interrelated consequences, both of which are profound causes for concern. Firstly, it diminishes the wide range of benefits provided by human-nature interactions for physical health, psychological wellbeing and cognitive performance. Children are particularly sensitive to this progressive disengagement from the natural world. Especially in developed countries, children increasingly suffer from nature-deficit disorder due to reduced time spent playing outdoors, with urgent consequences for health and cognitive development. Secondly, there is mounting evidence from research that less contact with nature during childhood can induce a cycle of disaffection towards the environment, reducing willingness to support conservation initiatives later in life. This creates a feedback loop towards progressive deterioration of the human-nature relationship, extending over generations and detrimental to both humans and the environment.

In the past, biodiversity and its conservation often played a prominent role in indigenous, local and traditional knowledge and governance systems. The erosion of these systems and the associated decline in sustainable traditional land use further threatens biodiversity and ecosystems services, as well as communities’ contributions to accomplishing SDG 4 (inclusive and quality education). As UNESCO points out, the future of biodiversity will depend on the global collective action of an educated society, including efforts to promote local and indigenous knowledge of biodiversity. This entails an inclusive approach that attracts and involves everyone. Furthermore, nature education will be of paramount importance for effecting the transformative change needed to address the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss: fundamental, system-wide reorganisation across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values. The IPBES global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services identified education and knowledge generation and sharing as a key leverage point for achieving transformative change, which includes behavioural changes. It is therefore vital to integrate biodiversity into contemporary education and learning programmes. Environmental sustainability, including biodiversity, cannot be sufficiently addressed as separate topics; they need to be integrated in the entire curriculum, educational practice and educator professional development, as part of the whole-institution and whole-school approaches. Moreover, education on sustainability and the environment goes beyond classroom or online learning. Direct immersion in nature, especially in childhood, contributes to care for nature across the life span. This includes activities in "wild" nature, such as hiking, camping and fishing, as well as in “domesticated” nature, such as gardening, with a stronger impact observed from wilderness activities.

The urgent need to effect a green transition necessitates participation by people of all ages and backgrounds, especially the youth, educators and local communities. UNESCO’s education sector proposes education for sustainable development (ESD) as a key response to this challenge:
ESD gives learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, values and agency to address interconnected global challenges including climate change, loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality. It empowers learners of all ages to make informed decisions and take individual and collective action to change society and care for the planet. ESD is a lifelong learning process and an integral part of quality education. It enhances the cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural dimensions of learning and encompasses learning content and outcomes, pedagogy and the learning environment itself.
The SDGs, notably target 4.7 of SDG 4, call for all learners to acquire by 2030 the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development. Priority action areas identified in the UNESCO roadmap include integrating ESD in global, regional, national and local policies, promoting a systemic approach, empowering educators with the knowhow for promoting the green transition, recognising the youth as key actors, and supporting local community action. Attaining SDG 4 is crucial also for the other SDGs, including SDGs 14 and 15 that directly address biodiversity, as well as closely related SDGs 12 and 13.