Fostering the cognitive skills to analyse environmental "commons dilemmas" is an urgent task of environmental education globally. Commons dilemmas are characterised by structural incentives to overexploit a natural resource; their solution is particularly pressing in threatened biodiversity "hotspot" areas. Solutions to these dilemmas require local actors who command knowledge on the social, ecological, economic and institutional aspects of resource utilisation. This study investigates subjective theories that future Indonesian teachers and agricultural advisors bring to a representative local commons dilemma, the extraction of the non-timber forest product rattan. Based on 19 structured qualitative interviews, we identified prior knowledge concerning rattan extraction. University students expressed subjective theories on the ecological consequences of rattan extraction such as landslides or flooding. In addition to education, students mentioned more effective state administrations to conserve rattan stocks. The need to institutionally balance short-term individual exploitation profits with long-term interests in the preservation of a productive resource at community level, was hardly recognised. While Indonesia strives to include environmental education in its school curricula, the results highlight that future educators themselves are not well equipped to address pressing issues of resource and biodiversity loss. (Contains 3 figures and 3 notes.)