International Network in Environmental Education

5. Juin 2009 : appel à collaboration - création de matériel éducatif

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L'équipe de Polis vous invite à participer à un projet de création de matériel éducatif.

Cliquer ici pour lire le descriptif.

The Charter of Human Responsibilities

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The "Polis" network coordinates the actions for the Charter of Human Responsibilities in Western Europe.

More information can be found in the Charter's web site, Western Europe section.

4. Current projects: Actions for the "Charter of Human Responsibilities

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The Charter of Human Responsibilities is an international process for debate and sensibilization on the value of responsibility. It is a network uniting individuals and organizations (environmental associations, journalists' unions, groups for non violent action, etc.), from 16 countries, in every continent. The team working for the Charter in Western Europe is coordinated by « Polis » and develops actions in three countries: Italy, France and Greece. For more information on our current (...) - 10. Who are we? / Programme d'EE, Education à l'environnement, Union Européenne

Le projet de la « Charte des responsabilités humaines »

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Retrouvez nos actions plus récentes sur le site de la « Charte des responsabilités humaines », pages de l'équipe de la Charte pour l'Europe de l'Ouest.

Contactez-nous à l'adresse : charte.europe@otenet.gr ou bien à polis@otenet.gr

4. Actions en cours : le projet de la « Charte des responsabilités humaines »

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Un projet international pour notre responsabilité commune, sur tous les continents

La Charte des responsabilités humaines est un processus international de débat et de sensibilisation sur la notion de responsabilité humaine. C'est un réseau réunissant des individus et des organisations (organisations environnementales, groupements de journalistes, d'activistes pour la non-violence, d'éducateurs etc.), en provenance de 16 pays, sur tous les continents.

L'équipe d'action sur la Charte pour l'Europe de l'Ouest est coordonnée par l'association « Polis » et développe des actions dans trois pays, l'Italie, la France et la Grèce.

Pour plus d'informations sur nos actions en cours, visiter les pages web de l'équipe de la Charte pour l'Europe de l'Ouest.

4. Charter of Environmental Education - First draft

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INTRODUCTION

The basic objective of Environmental Education is to form responsible citizens

We are confronting an environmental crisis affecting the whole planet, disrupting the pace of life and destroying the environment, as well as human communities. This global crisis cannot be compared with the previous ones mainly because what is threatened nowadays is the continuation of human existence itself. On the one hand, the size of pressure exerted on our planet has become unsustainable. On the other hand, the environmental crisis cannot be separated from a deeper social crisis, characterized by vast social inequalities, social alienation and a steep increase in violence.

Today's crisis is the consequence of the predominant way of production and consumption, which progressively spreads all over the planet. It is the result of specific economic, social and political choices, which reflect the system of values of our society. Thus, the use of corrective methods, involving the application of specially adapted technologies, is not sufficient by itself for the environmental and natural resources' management problems to be faced. The overcoming of the crisis, so as to provide a viable future, can only take place through critical analysis of our values and through deep changes in our way of thinking. The humanity has the responsibility to ensure the right for life for all peoples of the Earth, for future generations as well as for each and every form of life, regardless of its usefulness for humans.

Within this context the intervention of Environmental Education is placed, in all its forms, whether formal (in schools), non-formal (in the family etc.) or informal (through the mass media). To meet today's challenges, this kind of education should develop “political” judgement and analysis, with the original meaning of the term “political”, which concerns the management of public affairs. In order to achieve this, the complexity of environmental issues should be analysed in the light of the close interaction among ecological, economic and social factors. In this sense, real education about the environment cannot be cut off from social reality and should be placed against today's challenges which lie at the heart of environmental problems: unequal access to natural resources, poverty, threats to peace.

In this context, we shall regard the environment as a number of complementary realities7: it includes nature (to be respected and preserved), resources (to be managed and shared), a complex of problems (to be solved), a system of relations (to be understood for better decision-making), the entire biosphere (in which we live together in the long term), but above all, much closer to us, it is a living environment (that we must know and develop) and a community project (in which we must commit ourselves). Environmental Education aims to develop skills in the field of critical, ethical, strategic and aesthetic analysis, etc. related to the environment, in order to rebuild the network of relations between persons, the social groups to which they belong and the environment. It is not just an additional subject or a “form of education” in a long list of other subjects: it is rather a fundamental dimension of education as a whole, an essential process of human development and of social development as a whole. It is an extremely vast educational project based on many, diverse well-documented theoretical and strategic proposals.

Given the extend of its mission, Environmental Education is mainly based, among the more general educational principles, on the values of citizenship, responsibility and solidarity. The adoption of the value of responsibility, essential to preserve life on earth is considered a primary target. The development of responsible citizens contributes, at the same time, to the strengthening of democratic life, ensuring the effective participation of citizens in the decision-making process concerning environment and development. It is a concern to ensure that ordinary citizens find their role again, the rightful position which - by definition - they own. In this sense, Environmental Education is real political education.

Finally, the phenomenon of globalisation, in all sectors, forces us to expand the frontiers of the area of our intervention and responsibility. In the context of our continuous demand for local and immediate citizenship, from now on we should incorporate the perspective of a planetary citizenship.

PRINCIPLES

Basic principle:

Environmental Education aims to form citizens who are responsible and capable of taking action in the field of environment.

1. In this context and regarding the value of responsibility, educators in environment should promote the adoption of the following principles:

1.1 Responsibility for the environment concerns every level of social class, individuals, social and professional groups, state and interstate organisations.

1.2 Each one of us is responsible for the sustainable management of natural resources and the preservation of a position for every form of life on earth, regardless of its usefulness to humans.

1.3 The recognition of our responsibility for the environment involves the expression of solidarity towards other people, other social groups, future generations, at the same time promoting equality, social and economic justice on a local, regional and planetary level.

1.4 The realisation and recognition of the direct and indirect consequences of our actions on the environment, should lead to the adoption, in our everyday life, of behaviours which contribute to its preservation.

1.5 The recognition of our responsibility, as members of a society, means that, beyond individual action, we are ready to co-operate with others to organise collective intervention in our social or professional life.

1.6 The recognition of our responsibility entails that our objective should be the prevention of the impacts on the environment, as well as the implementation and respect of the principle of prevention, on a social level.

1.7 Our responsibility for the environment is proportional to the level of knowledge, capabilities and strengths of each one of us.

1.8 We must not disclaim our personal responsibility for the environment, as individuals or members of a social group, on the plea that other individuals or other social groups should take the responsibility.

2. Regarding the educational process itself, the formulation of responsible citizens towards the environment entails that those who do educational work in this field have as an objective:

2.1 The acquisition of basic knowledge and the way of acquiring basic knowledge, so that the young and adults are in a position to be able to seek, understand and analyse in a critical way information about the environment and to be able to formulate proposals for the solution of the problems.

2.2 The introduction to the complexity of environmental issues, based on the interaction among economic, social and environmental factors.

2.3 The development of a critical and autonomous way of thinking, which allows the analysis and dispute - if it is necessary - of the economic, social and political choices, which lie in the heart of environmental issues, as well as the values on which these have been based.

2.4 The introduction to the close interaction between human societies in the era of globalisation and their consequences for the expression of citizenship in connection with the environment, on a local, regional and planetary level.

2.5 The adoption of values of tolerance and respect for other people's dignity and cultural diversity, so that the creative participation of an individual in a public discussion on environmental issues is possible.

2.6 The promotion of an individual's total development, addressing mental as well as emotional, sensory and other levels, aiming to establish amicable relationships with other individuals, the social group one belongs to and the environment.

3. Relationships with the Charter of Human Responsibilities and other Charters

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Our attempt to formulate a Charter of Environmental Education is based on other similar attempts.

First of all it is closely connected with the course of the Alliance for a responsible, plural and united world, an informal network in which thousands of individuals and organisations participate, from about one hundred countries, which has developed a remarkable action, for the last ten years, both in the field of theoretical analysis and the field of social action in various contexts. The Alliance has been working since 1995 on the project of the creation of a “Charter of Human Responsibilities” to face the challenges of the 21st century3. This Charter has been formulated progressively through a collective process, in which individuals from all over the world, from various cultural and social-professional groups, participated. The final draft of this Charter started to be diffused in October 2002, in many languages, aiming to study how much the principles declared could be applicable in a concrete way to various areas of human activity and various cultural environments. The plan of creating a “Charter of Environmental Education” falls within the process of adaptation of the basic principles of the “Charter of Human Responsibilities” in the field of Environmental Education.

Simultaneously, we were inspired by the basic principles for a sustainable development introduced in the “Earth Charter”, which constitutes an attempt for the creation of a third pillar for public life, together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations' Charter4. This text was formulated collectively, under the co-ordination of Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the Council of Earth and Milkhail Gorbachev, president of the Green Gross International. The objective of this initiative is the promotion and implementation of the Earth Charter by citizens, governments and the world of business, ensuring, at the same time, the support of the United Nations.

We have also taken into account the attempt of the creation of a “Charter of Environmental Education” (which, however, has not been formulated yet) of the Planet'ERE network, which constitutes an informal French-speaking network of individuals and organisations who take action in the field of Environmental Education in more than 40 countries. The project is defined as the “creation of a Charter of the Planet'ERE network which will record the principles and objectives of the French-speaking people involved in the field of Environmental Education”. The principles put forward by this network, on the occasion of meetings and various texts5, offered us some basic ideas, which we considered when creating the first draft of the Charter we present. Our objective, however, is different from that of the Planet'ERE network, in the sense that we are not limited to the French-speaking environment, but we aim, for the formulation and implementation of the Charter, to cooperate with people who come from various cultural groups.

The plethora of Charters that have already been created or are today at a stage of elaboration6 are an indication of the urgent need for the definition and implementation of values and principles which should guide human action for the confrontation of the serious threats that the society and the environment are facing. It is obvious that these Charters declare convergent and complementary principles, which could be best applied in the field of Environmental Education.

2. Who is the Charter of Environmental Education aimed at?

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Agreeing that Environmental Education concerns everyone, of all ages, this Charter is addressed to the following social groups:
Educators of all grades and disciplines, trainers and animators,
Those working for the mass media and are involved in communication about environmental issues,
Those who are responsible for formulating a strategy in education and communication about the environment (in Ministries and other public organisations),
Members of non-governmental environmental organisations, who undertake communication actions for the environment in the context of their activities,
Social-professional groups whose activities, by nature, have important impacts for the environment,
Politicians, elected or not, who take decisions which influence the environment.

1. Necessity of a Charter of Environmental Education

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Our co-operation with people and organisations all over the world, through the Polis network, led us to the conclusion that a Charter of Environmental Education is necessary. Between 1994 and 2001 with the help of publications of the Polis network, in Greece and France, in three languages (books and the bulletin “Dialogues for Environmental Education”) and other communication activities (website, press releases), we presented educators' experiences and views which were based on divergent and sometimes contradictory views about the role of Environmental Education, starting from a purely naturalist or intuitive approach and reaching a political and active view.

The necessity for the formulation of basic principles, shared by those working in this field, was brought forward in a particularly intense way during the preparation of our latest book, “Environmental Education: six proposals for citizens' action”2, which was published in 2001.This book was written in a collective way by an international group that exchanged thoughts and proposals for six months through the Internet and met in June 2001. Although it seemed that the participants agreed on some basic principles about the objectives and methods of Environmental Education, a number of views became the object of an animated discussion and were not unanimously acceptable.

We also found out that, very often, those who educate about the environment do not possess the necessary knowledge to analyse the social, economic and political parameters of environmental issues and, in addition, they usually consciously chose not to mention these parameters. The consequence of this attitude, for educational practice, is a neutral, fragmentary and sometimes naive speech.

A Charter of basic principles for Environmental Education would allow those working in this field to clarify concepts that have remained ambiguous until now, become conscious about their own responsibility, identify people who share the same ethical approach and co-operate with them. We refer to Environmental Education in all its forms: formal (in schools), non-formal (in the family, recreation grounds, work, etc.) and informal (through the mass media).

The first draft of a Charter of Environmental Education that we submit to you falls within the scope of a citizenship education, based on the principle of responsibility as a fundamental element of an ethic approach that could allow humanity to face the challenges of the 21st century. This Charter defines a reference framework for the action of individuals and social groups involved in education and communication for the environment.

3. Research and training

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Polis participates in research and training Environmental Education projects sponsored by the European Union.

In 1997, Polis co-ordinated the Greek chapter of the project Eurosymbioses - Internet and Environmental Education in Europe, which was funded by the Commission of European Communities, through the SOCRATES programme. The partners of this project in Belgium, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain set up the EuroSymbioses Web site ? “the magazine of Environmental Education actors in Europe ? and organised in their respective countries awareness-raising campaigns and teacher training courses about the use of Internet in Environmental Education. Polis implemented this project in Greece jointly with the Department of Primary Education of the Aegean University and with the support of the National Youth Secretariat of the Greek Ministry of Education.

In 1998, Polis participated in the European project Sustainability Environmental Education in European Primary Schools (SEEPS), an initiative of the British Moray House Institute that was sponsored by the COMENIUS programme of the European Union.

During 1999, Polis co-ordinated in Greece the activities of the URBANET project funded by the CONNECT programme of the European Union, that deals with urban environmental education. This project, carried out in collaboration with organisms in six other European countries, involves: (1) developing a reflection and preparing pedagogical proposals, by using the new technologies, on issues concerning urban education; (2) gathering and classifying the most significant experiences and the best practices implemented in European countries on the issue of urban pedagogy; and (3) setting up a specialised Web site and publishing a reference CD-ROM that will be distributed in all the participating countries.

During 2000-2001, Polis was in charge of the pedagogical co-ordination in Greece of the SEAM project (Sistema di Educazione Ambientale Marina, or Marine Environmental Education System), an initiative of the Italian organism Forum for the Venice Lagoon that got financial support from the ECOS-OUVERTURE programme of the European Union. Eleven communities in the Greek Cyclades islands are participating in the SEAM project. Based on a partnership between local communities, non-governmental organisations, universities and research centres in Egypt, Spain, Greece, Italy and Rumania, this project suggests establishing a network of local laboratories for the promotion of marine environmental education and environmental tourism in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.