Environmental management in South Africa is constrained by a lack of capacity for effective stakeholder engagement and environmental decision-making. The country's excellent environmental legislation demands that environmental professionals be appropriately trained at the higher education level. To this end, a Bachelors level learning programme in environmental management (the EM programme) was developed by the University of South Africa (UNISA). The approach used to design a curriculum for the EM programme is explained in this article. It is also argued that the EM programme should be extended to cater for the management of special environments and individual resources. The EM programme could also serve as a model for the development of a similar programme aimed at building the professional and technical capacity required for biodiversity management. (Contains 2 tables.)