ORGANISATION OF A WORKSHOP ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

ADULTS’ RIGHT TO LEARN: CONVERGENCE, SOLIDARITY AND ACTION

PROPOSAL: ORGANISATION OF A WORKSHOP ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

1. BACKGROUND

“Without man and woman…the green has no colour”.

(Paulo Freire at the Seminar on Environmental Education/Rio 92)

Human beings carry the main responsibility for the big changes that made the current world what it is. ICAE´s Assembly, to take place before the WSF, brings clearly the message that “another world is possible” if adults who are responsible for what takes place in the world today take on the commitment to learn and transfer to the coming generations renovated and sustainable ways to live and live together among human beings and with other natural beings. 

Historical moments for Humanity are historical moments for Education. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as Rio 92, and several of the summits that followed, clearly showed the need to reconsider the current unsustainable global model of development that has been imposed on the planet. This model has been causing global problems that threaten the survival of humanity and of all living beings from GAIA, Mother Earth.

In the context of a globalised world many issues have become of concern for everyone: from strategists, planners and executives from international organisations or multinational corporations to poor persons and countries that experience in their daily lives the consequences of the climatic changes, the fast desertification, the scarcity of water caused by deforestation at any rate, poisoned food resulting from chemical products and agro-toxics, the death of seeds caused by the option for GMOs, the loss of life in rivers, lakes and oceans due to polluting activities, the constant impoverishment of small farmers caused by the control of seeds in the world by 10 multinationals…any many others.

All these issues are topics for Environmental Education understood as a Transformative Learning through synergic action of Humanity with the Environment. It is an inclusive, permanent and continuous education that goes beyond classrooms and happens in the school of life and of institutions acting through various networks and connections.

ICAE, in the context of Rio 92, had a very important role in relation to Environmental Education when it organised the International Seminar on Environmental Education together with other international, regional and local institutions. This historical seminar had as its highlight the participatory preparation and later the approval by consensus of the Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility. It was one of the 36 Treaties from the NGO and Social Movements Forum participating at the Global Forum parallel to the UN Conference.

Published originally by ICAE in five languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic), the Treaty on Environmental Education was firstly distributed among the centres and councils linked to ICAE. At the same time it started to travel a long route. Besides being launched at international events (e.g. ECOED/Canada, 1993) it was the subject for international research (IDRC/OISE, 1995) and topic for doctoral thesis and masters dissertations. It also became a reference for municipal policies on environment and education and for initiatives and programmes from NGOs and environmental movements. In the last years, together with the Earth Charter, it has been considered as a pillar on which National Networks of Environmental Education are built (Brazil, 2000). Currently the Treaty is being used as a guiding document for the elaboration of public policies on environmental education (Brazil, 2002) and is being proposed as a key dialogue tool for the UN Decade on Sustainable Development (5th Iberoamerican Congress on Environmental Education, with participation from countries in the American continent, Europe and Portuguese speaking Africa, 2006).

The Treaty is seen as carrying political views that guide the educational practices of numerous environmental educators around the world. The institutions that are using it recognise its historicity and contemporariness.  The Title and the Prologue of the Treaty remain current as they reaffirm the search for consensus, respecting and promoting bio-social-cultural diversity in this historical moment marked by a type of globalisation that can be characterised as “globocolonisation”. In the same way, the Principles and Values contained in the Treaty are still valid and are essential for the current moment. There is a need to deepen them, to specify them clearly or broaden them on the basis of the civilizatory processes of humanity. This must be done in permanent dialogue with other planetary initiatives as the Earth Charter, the Charter of Human Responsibilities and the Manifesto for Life, among others. Furthermore, the Treaty is a pioneer text in as far as it strengthens the need for the education of social actors emphasising the need for environmental education of adults, in particular of social, political and entrepreneurial leaders and of key opinion leaders. “Independently of our academic background, our age and the position we occupy in the social fabric, we all need to learn new knowledge, new attitudes and new forms of local and planetary citizenship participation”, reminds us the Video of the Treaty.

In this context, ICAE can contribute significantly in the promotion, revision and deepening of the Treaty through a participatory dialogue with forums and networks such as the World Social Forum, the World Forum on Education, the Earth Charter, the Charter on Human Responsibilities, among others. As an internationally recognised NGO, ICAE can also act together with international organisations, governments, entrepreneurs, NGOs and social movements suggesting that they assign significant resources to Environmental Education actions as part of a global action for “another possible world”.

The previous considerations justify a workshop on Environment, Ecology and Sustainable Development at the ICAE 7th World Assembly, based mainly on the Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility.

PROPOSAL:

“The ethic of care, as trademark of a New Culture,
is the great legacy that the current generation must pass on
to the new generations as condition for the future to be possible”
(Moema L. Viezzer, “por una Pedagogía de la Inteface”)

1. Central theme:

The Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility, with an emphasis on an inclusive, permanent and continuous education.

2. Objectives

  • Recover the historical role of ICAE in the participatory process of elaboration of the Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility/Rio 92 and the contemporariness of the Treaty in relation to an inclusive, permanent and continuous Environmental Education.

  • Give visibility to the interconnection between Environmental Education and the several themes chosen by ICAE as key for its 2007 Assembly.

  • Prepare recommendations for the inclusion of the environmental dimension in the initiatives of inclusive, permanent and continuous education in dialogue with other planetary initiatives and with emphasis in the need of Learning Communities of Adults and Social Actors that intervene in the quality of the environment and of life.

3. Lines of reflection, dialogue

  • Historical recovery and contemporariness of the principles, values and guidelines of the Treaty in the framework of ICAE 7th World Assembly.

  • Interconnection of Environmental Education with the themes chosen by ICAE for the 7th World Assembly, specially: environmental education for equitable gender relations; environmental education for peace with respect for human rights; environmental education for living together in socio-cultural diversity; environmental education for sustainable consumption as a way to combat poverty and improve wealth distribution on the basis of an economy of solidarity; environmental education as part of health education.

  • Contribution of Environmental Education on the basis of the guidelines of the EE Treaty in concepts and methodologies of an inclusive, permanent and continuous education in the areas of formal, non-formal, diffuse and edu-communication, and with a multi/inter/transdisciplinary approach.

  • Indispensable Interface among Environmental Educators and other Social Actors for the constitution of Learning Communities together with public administration organisms, enterprises, media, universities, schools, networks of civil society organisations such as cooperatives, movements for an economy of solidarity. Necessary articulation with strategic groups such as youth and vulnerable social groups: communities located in risk areas and living in extreme rural and urban poverty, collectors of recyclable materials, indigenous and traditional communities, among others.

4. Expected Results

  • Historical recovery of ICAE´s contribution in the elaboration of the Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility.

  • Dialogue of the Treaty with the themes and proposals of ICAE 7th World Assembly.

  • Suggestions for strategies of environmental education for ICAE: members, partners, friends and related networks and in its contributions in planetary summits (e.g. CONFINTEA)

5. Methodology

  • Audiovisual presentation of the historical recovery of the Treaty of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility  in the context of an inclusive, permanent and continuous education.

  • Round table dealing with themes related to ICAE 7th World Assembly from the perspective of environmental education.

  • Group work for dialogues and proposals in relation to the themes of the round table.

  • Plenary with recommendations and proposals.

  • Closure and presentation of a final document to the Organising Commission.

     (Contact: Moema Viezzer, moema@certto.com.br)

NEWS

THE COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

 The Commission on ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT will deal with issues such as ECOLITERACY, ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL ACTORS, "LEARNING FROM GAIA" with the remarkable participation of panelists from all regions. The following speakers have confirmed their participation: 

Yvonne Underhill-Sem (South Pacific), has been part of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) for six years, most of the time in her capacity as Coordinator of the Pacific Region and at present, she is collaborating with the Fiji Women's Rights Movement with headquarters in Suva, Fiji. She has taught at the University of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia, and she has also been an independent academic in Samoa and in Germany before working with the Secretariat of the Africa, Caribbean, Pacific Group of States (ACP) in Brussels. As feminist geographer, at present she teaches Gender and Development, Critical Studies on Pacific Population and Geography at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Miriam Duabilibi (Latin America). General Coordinator of Ecoar. She is one of the most important Brazilian environmental activists, author of different books, articles and texts, well-known at international level for her innovative socio-environmental projects. She is an expert in Environmental Literacy and Ecologic Projects and is responsible of developing different projects with the Ministry of Environment and with the National Fund for Environment.

Omar Ovalles (Venezuela) PhD in Development Science, Center of Postdoc Research of the Faculty of Economy and Social Sciences (FACES) of the University of Venezuela and Professor of the Postdoc on Environmental Education -Brazil. He has a Masters Degree in Regional Urban Planning. He has worked professionally in the following areas: geography, regional urban planning, environmental sciences and tourism, and at present he is counselor of the Latin American Parliament.

Darlene E. Clover (North America) is professor in the Faculty of Education in the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Her areas of academic interest and teaching include environmental adult education, participatory democracy and citizenship, community and cultural leadership, feminist adult education and aesthetic theory, arts-based learning and inquiry. Her activist-research and community work revolves around women using the arts for socio-political learning/change and more recently, street-involved women in Victoria using the arts to explore issues of violence and health.

Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie (Africa), a Cameroonian Geologist and Gender Ambassador with the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) of the Netherlands. She was the General Secretary of Women International Coalition Organization (WICO), The President of WICO Africa and the Executive Director of Cameroon Vision Trust, a Cameroon based NGO. For over 15 years she has been actively working in the field of sustainable development and environmental management at grassroots levels in Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and beyond.
 

17/11/06

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