5th World Congress of Environmental Education - Montreal 2009

From 10 to 14 May 2009 was held in Montreal the 5th World Congress of Environmental Education (WEEC - the largest international network of environmental education) in Montreal (Canada).
This event was attended by over 1000 delegates representing 126 countries.
The congress was organized in plenary sessions and in 12 thematic niches; it was led by 730 speeches, symposia, workshops, 224 round tables and were presented 260 posters.

The congress was structured in 12 themes:
- Relationships between ecology and economy: the issue of sustainability
- Questions of fairness in socio-ecological issues
- Environmental health
- Urban challenger
- Ecologizing colleges and universities
- School and community
- Learning in society
- Heritage interpretation
- Indigenous knowledge and practices
- Ethics, environmental thought, and worldviews
- Art: imagination, creativity, and meaning
- Ecological identity

The Parco Nord Milano attended this conference with the park Director - Riccardo Gini - and me.
We was presented the poster entitled "Surfing by foot: internet to highlight, share, organize, environmental education experience" - abstract
This poster presented the experience of networks organized by Parco Nord and Lombardy Region in recent years.

Download the poster in pdf format (1 Mb)

During the Congress - especially in the plenary sessions - was emerged the wealth of educational experience in the world, but also the major difficulties that EA meet to make its voice heard and to be recognized as an essential element to create harmony between man and the environment that surrounds him.
In the plenary session I want to remember some important, illuminant and hard speeches - positive or negative speeches, depending on the personal views.
Stephen Lewis – Professor of Global Health, McMaster University, Canada
"... Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences could be second only to a global nuclear war ..." – abstract.
Riccardo Petrella - Comité international pour un contrat mondial de l'eau, Belgique - from Italy
"... knowledge is not a commodity .To come to realize, in other words, that our fate lies in the hands of us all ... ... Today’s economy has distorted the true nature of the oikos nomos (eco-nomy), or “rules of the household ..." - abstract

In some cases it’s at risk also education in general - see the speech of :
Adriana Puiggros - Faculty of Philosophy and the Humanities at the University of Buenos Aires
"... the biggest obstacles to the full recognition of these types of knowledge as both legitimate and useful are found within the educational systems themselves. School curricula have become inflexible structures resistant to change and, more particularly, to the enhancement and transfer of popular knowledge... few are the countries that develop public policies intended to promote the inclusion of social groups that have been marginalized within the dominant economy ...". - abstract

Within the thematic niches (NT) have been discussed many topics and interesting experiences.
I particularly have appreciate some suggestions that emerged in the following NT:
NT - Art: imagination, creativity and meaning
Ricardo Dominguez - Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexico
The aesthetic dimension in environmental education – “ ... environmental education is not only scientific approach ... but also an opportunity to save an intersubjective dimension, between man and nature, aimed at the formation of aesthetic taste ...” - abstract

Salvador García Ruvalcaba – Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales Universidad de Guadalajara, Mexico
Songs as a means to increase environmental culture – “ ... effective to disseminate and act on local environmental issues such as proper handling of fire, ... maintenance of rivers, ... species and ecosystems conservation ..." - abstract

NT – school and community
Philippe Mahuzies – Office central de la coopération a l’école, France
The garden at school: a place for sharing our life – “ ... a complex eco-socio-sistem ... a space of freedom in closed and open, public and private, individual and collective ...” - abstract

Yvan Carlot – IUFM de Lyon, France
The theme of global warming as a pedagogic situation to address the complex issues of environmental education – “ ... There is an urgent need to introduce sustainability, both in formal and informal education, the elements of a systems thinking that takes into account the uncompleted research, the complexity of the mechanisms involved ... “ - abstract

NT – indigenous knowledge and pratcices
Sharina Dodsworth – Royal Roads University/Government of Nunavut, Dept. of Environment, Canada
Ways of knowing more: Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary environmental science education in the Canadian Arctic – “ ... ''learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges, and learning to see from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledge systems…and then learning to use both eyes together for the benefit of all ...” - abstract

Emily Root – Lakehead University, Canada
Decolonizing TEKnowledgEE: Reconceptualizing traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in environmental education (EE) – “ ... underline the purposes of a pedagogy of the land to both disrupt Western, colonial methods of appropriating ecological knowledge for academic and scientific purposes while educating for respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples ..." - abstract

Silvia Zaccaria – WEEC Secretariat, Italy
Indigenous cosmologies and the whites' dreams - “ ... If not considered in the light of the logics – i.e. cosmologies – and local contexts, these concepts risk to simply represent the ''White Man's dreams'', behind which stand new politics of exclusion, exploitation and violation of indigenous rights and their environment...” - abstract

NT – heritage interpretation
Gilles Vincent – Jardin botanique de Montréal, Canada
Environmental education at the Montreal Botanical Garden, two concrete examples - “Youth gardens ... This program, offered since 1938 to young people living in urban areas, allow students to be the ones that make their garden.... Horticultural information service … This program responds to several questions from the public concerning the control of pests and plant diseases ...” - abstract
Elisabetta Falchetti – Civic Museum of Zoology, Italy
The evolution of a science museum to sustainability - "... the example of the Museum of Zoology of Roma, Italy ... The approach of the museum is broadly intercultural and it use scientific, artistic, humanistic expression to valorize a cultural and systemic complex." - abstract

There were also many workshops and round table discussions – but I haven’t participated to them

The poster section was full of contributions, but many spaces are left empty. In addition, this section has been placed in a somewhat isolated place, which was not particularly seen.

Also the area occupied by associations, institutions and companies - almost all Canadians, of course - has been somewhat isolated.

The excursions provided by the congress program have not been very successful (this is what I think).
I participated in a canoe trip on the river of Miles Iles - close to Montreal - with twenty other people.

It was been a nice experience and interesting ... For example ... we have known that the natural area along which we moved is not a public protected area (perhaps within a park), but simply a private place tacitly abandoned and accepted as "natural protected area"

If it begin to circulate the idea that this area could become a protected park, probably the owners of the areas stake out it and begin to enhance the value of land.

Very interesting was The Eco-Show: a festive rendezvous at the crossroads of biodiversity, fantasy and eco-responsibility. Eco show was ospitated into Biodome. - An oasis in the city, that recreates some of the most important ecosystems of the Americas.

We was moved trought Tropical Forest, Laurentiam forest, the St. Lawrence Marine ecosystem, Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems.; always be with small and nice shows (music, theatre, acrobatic spectacles)

In the next days some info on the conclusions of the congress – the answers at these questions:
- How can environmental education add meaning to our lives?
- How can environmental education contribute to social innovation?
- How can environmental education contribute to political innovation and influence public policies?
... and an overview on the posters.