Social Learning: Towards Sustainable Waste Management in Tongatapu

In the debate on sustainability many scholars are advocating for wider use of social learning models in order to successfully address complex challenges. Waste management is one example of complexity that our societies need to deal with and that increasingly calls for a broader approach, rather than focusing on narrow technical solutions only. This chapter is part of a broader study of limitations to social learning that focuses on area of waste management in Tongatapu, the main island of the Kingdom of Tonga. It contains an analysis of a number of limitations at different levels of social interaction that affect the success of social learning in waste management. The study indicates that an emphasis on social learning through participatory problem solving is unlikely to be sufficient, without a broader awareness of the socio-cultural context and subsequent local understanding of the problem itself. It also suggests there is a need to integrate the limiting effects of more permanent cultural characteristics when advocating for a social learning approach. Although the challenges may then appear to be considerably harder to overcome, the efforts will probably turn out to be more sustainable in the long term. Indeed such changes represent social learning by themselves. This study helps to inform future efforts towards enabling and strengthening social learning in waste management on Tongatapu, as well as in Tongan environmental resource management in general.