| TREATY ON ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY" (This treaty, as with education, is a dynamic process and should therefore promote reflection, debate and differences.) We signatories, people from all parts of the globe, are devoted to protect life on Earth and recognize the central role of education in shaping values and social action. We commit ourselves to a process of educational transformation aimed at involving ourselves, our communities and nations in creating equitable and sustainable societies. In so doing we seek to bring new hope to our small, troubled, but still beautiful planet. I. INTRODUCTION We consider that environmental education for equitable sustainability is a continuous learned process based on respect for all life. Such education affirms values and actions which contribute to human and social transformation and ecological preservation. It fosters ecologically sound and equitable societies that live together in interdependence and diversity. This requires individual and collective responsibility at local, national and planetary level. We consider that preparing ourselves for the required changes depends on advancing collective understanding of the systemic nature of the crisis that threaten the world's future. The root causes of such problems as increasing poverty, environmental deterioration and communal violence can be found in the dominant socio-economic system. This system is based in over-production and over-consumption for some and under-consumption and inadequate conditions to produce for the great majority. We consider that inherent in the crisis are the erosion of basic values and the alienation and non-participation of most individuals in the building of their own future. It is of fundamental importance that the world's communities design and work out their own alternatives to existing policies. Such alternatives include the abolition of those programmes of development adjustment and economic reform which maintain the existing growth model with its devasting effects on the environment and its diversity of species, including human beings We consider that environmental education should urgently bring about changes in the quality of life and greater consciousness of personal conduct, as well as harmony among human beings and between them and other forms of life. II. SOME PRINCIPLES OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION FOR EQUITABLE AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES. 1. Education is the right of all; we are all learners and educators. 2. Environmental education, whether formal, non-formal or informal, should be grounded in critical and innovate thinking in any time or place, promoting the transformation and reconstruction of society. 3. Environmental education is both individual and collective. It aims to develop local and global citizenship with respect to the self determination and the sovereignty of nations. 4. Environmental education is not neutral but is value based. It is an act for social transformation. 5. Environmental education must involve a holistic approach and thus an interdisciplinary focus in the relations between human beings, nature and the universe. 6. Environmental education must stimulate solidarity, equality, and respect human rights involving democratic strategies and an open climate of cultural interchange. 7. Environmental education should treat critical global issues, their causes and interrelationships with a systemic approach and within their social and historical contexts. Fundamental issues in relation to development and the environment such as population, health, peace, human rights, democracy, hunger, degradation of flora and fauna, should be perceived in this manner. 8. Environmental education must facilitate equal partnerships in the processes of decision-making at all levels and stages. 9. Environmental education must recover, recognize, respect, reflect and utilize indigenous history and local cultures, as well as promoting cultural, linguistic and ecological diversity. This implies acknowledging the historical perspective of native peoples as a way to change ethnocentric approaches, as well as the encouragement of bilingual education. 10. Environmental education should empower all peoples and promote opportunities for grassroots democratic change and participation. This means that communities must regain control of their own destiny. 11. Environmental education values all different forms of knowledge. Knowledge is diverse, cumulative and socially produced and should not be patented or monopolized. 12. Environmental education must be designed to enable people to manage conflicts in just and humane ways. 13. Environmental education must stimulate dialogue and cooperation among individuals and institutions in order to create new lifestyles which are based on meeting everyone's basic need, regardless of ethnic group, gender, age, religious, class, physical or mental differences. 14. Environmental education requires a democratization of the mass media and its commitment to the interests of all sectors of society. Communication is an inalienable right and the mass media must be transformed into the one of the main channels of education, not only by disseminating information on an egalitarian basis, but also through the exchange of means, values and experiences. 15. Environmental education must integrate knowledge, skills, values, attitudes and actions. It should convert every opportunity into an educational experience for sustainable societies. 16. Education must help develop an ethical awareness of all forms of life with which humans share this planet, respect all life cycles and impose limits on human exploitation of other forms of life. III PLAN OF ACTION The organizations that sign this Treaty will implement policies to: 1. Turn the declaration of this Treaty and of others Treaties produced by the Conference of Citizens' Groups during the RIO 92 process into documents for use in formal education systems and in education programmes of social organizations. 2. Work on environmental education for sustainable societies together with groups that draft other Treaties approved during RIO 92. 3. Make comparative studies of the treaties of citizens' groups and those produced by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and use the conclusions in educational activities. 4. Work on the principles of this Treaty from the perspective of local situations, necessarily relating them to state of the planet, creating a consciousness for transformation. 5. Promote knowledge, policies, methods, and practices in all areas of formal, informal and non-formal environmental education for all age groups. 6. Promote and support training for environmental conservation, preservation and management, as part of the exercise of local and planetary citizenship. 7. Encourage individuals and groups to take positions, and institutions to make policies, that constantly review the coherence between what is said and what is done, as well as the values of our cultures, traditions and history. 8. Circulate information about people's wisdom and memory, and support and inform about appropriate initiatives and technologies to the use of natural resources. 9. Promote gender corresponsability in relation to production, reproduction and the maintenance of life. 10. Stimulate and support the creation and strengthening of ecologically responsible producer and consumer associations, and commercial networks, that provide ecologically sound alternatives. 11. Sensitise populations so that they establish People's Councils for Environment Management and Ecological Action to research, discuss, inform and decide on environmental problems and policies. 12. Create educational, judicial, organizational and political conditions to guarantee that governments allocate a significant part of their budgets to education and environment. 13. Promote partnership and social cooperation among NGOs, social movements, and the UN agencies (UNESCO, UNEP, FAO, and others) at national, regional and international levels to jointly set priorities for action in education, environment and development. 14. Promote the creation and strengthening of national, regional and international networks for joint action between organizations of the South, North, East and West with a planetary perspective (e.g. foreign debt, human rights, peace, global warming, population, contamined products). 15. Ensure that the media becomes an educational instrument for the preservation and conservation of natural resources presenting a plurality of reliable and contextualized information; and stimulate the broadcasting of programmes generated by local communities. 16. Promote an understanding of the causes of consumerist behaviour and act to change practices and the systems that maintain them. 17. Search for self-managed, economically and ecologically appropriate alternatives of production which contribute to an improvement in the quality of life. 18. Act to eradicate sexist, racist and other prejudices, as well as contribute to the promotion of cultural diversity, territorial rights and self-determination. 19. Mobilize formal and non-formal institutions of higher education in support of teaching, research and extension towards the community in environmental education and the creation in each University of interdisciplinary centres for the environment. 20. Strengthen social organizations and movements in order to enhance the exercise of citizenship and improvement in the quality of life and the environment. 21. Assure that ecological organizations popularize their activities and that communities incorporate ecological issues in everyday life. 22. Establish criteria for the approval of education projects for sustainable societies , discussing social priorities with social agencies. I. COORDINATION, MONITORING AND EVALUATING SYSTEMS All the signatories of this Treaty agree to: 1. Distribute and promote the Treaty on Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility in all countries through joint campaigns by NGOs social movements and others. 2. Stimulate and create organisations and groups of NGOs and social movements to initiate, implement, follow, and evaluate the elements of this Treaty. 3. Produce materials to publicise this Treaty and its development into educational action, in the form of texts, educational materials, courses, research, cultural events, media programmes, fairs of popular creativity, electronic mail, and other means. 4. Form an international coordination group to give continuity to the proposals in this Treaty. 5. Stimulate, create and develop networks of environmental educators. 6. Ensure that the 1st. Planetary Meeting of Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies is held within three years. 7. Coordinate action to support social movements which are working for improving the quality of life, extending effective international solidarity. 8. Foster links between NGOs and social movements to review their strategies and programmes on environment and education. V. GROUPS TO BE INVOLVED This Treaty is aimed at: 1. Organizations of social movements - ecologists, women's, youth, ethnic, farmers', union, neighbourhood and artistic groups, amongst others. 2. NGOs committed to grassroots social movements. 3. Professional educators interested in establishing programmes related to environmental issues in formal education systems and other educational activities. 4. Those responsible for the mass media who are ready to accept the challenge of openness and democracy, thus initiating a new concept in mass communication. 5. Scientists and scientific institutions that take ethical positions and are sympathetic to the work of social movements and organizations and movements. 6. Interested religious groups with social organizations and movements. 7. Local and national governments able to act in accordance and partnership with the aims of this Treaty. 8. Business people committed to working within a rationale of recovery, conservation and improvement of the environment and the quality of life. 9. Alternative communities that experiences new lifestyles in harmony with the principles and aims of this Treaty. VI. RESOURCES All signatories of this Treaty are committed to : 1. Allocating a significant part of their resources to the development of educational programmes related to an improvement of the quality of life. 2. Demanding that governments allocate a significant percentage of Gross National Product to supporting programmes of environmental education in all sectors of public adminstration, with the direct participation of NGOs and social movements. 3. Propose economic policies that simulate business to develop and apply appropriate technology and create environmental education programmes for the community, and as part of personnel training. 4. Encourage funding agencies to prioritize and allocate significant resources to environmental education and ensure its presence in projects they approve wherever possible. 5. Contribute to the formation of a cooperative and decentralized global banking system for NGOs and social movements that will use part of its resources for educational programmes and at the same time be an exemplary exercise in using financial resources. Finally, with this text, we have the version of the Treaty on Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility, whose aim is to gain the commitment of all active and interested people to a series of principles. The process that led to the elaboration of this Treaty can be described in the following stages: I. The elaboration of a Charter on Environmental Education in four languages, with the subsequent collection and systematisation of comments improving or modifying it from five continents between August 1991 and March 1992. II. In March 1992 the tenth Charter on environmental Education was introduced at the 4th Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) in New York where it was re-elaborated by the NGO Education Working Group, which expanded it not only in terms of its concepts but also in its format and the composition of the group responsible for its development. It thus took on the characteristics of a Treaty, an international agreement to be signed by individuals and organisations concerned with education. Guidelines were given by the NGO Coordination Group for UNCED for the elaboration of documents that contained: An Introduction, Principles, A Plan of Action, Coordination and Monitoring Mechanisms, Groups to be Involved, and Resources. The first two sections were discussed in New York. III. In April/May 1992 the texts elaborated in New York were once again circulated internationally, thereby completing the drafts of other four sections. Finally this text was translated into four languages and printed for discussion in the Journey on Environmental Education in the context of RIO/92. During the Journey in June 1992 a last stage in the elaboration of the text led to final version after 14 hours of discussion in plenary sessions and workshops, and many hours editing the additional proposals into the text. This version was then translated into the four languages adopted by the International NGO Forum. The official launch of the Treaty took place on 7 June 1992, during an Eco-carnival Parade with the participation of 2000 children from the samba school Flowers for Tomorrow, Brazil. On 9 June the Treaty was presented to the plenary session of the international NGO Forum, after which a group met to discuss specific points which still required consensus. Some additional comments were made in the plenary and are included in an annex, reflecting the start of a new stage of implementing the Treaty which began in Rio. The process then also started to collect the signatures of those supporting and committed to the implementation of the Treaty. V. Two plenaries on 11 and 13 June will complete this process, deciding collectively possible forms of coordination and monitoring in relation to the Treaty's implementation. This act, unique in the history of civil society, shows commitment to change, and at the same time demand that governments change. Rio de Janeiro, 9th June 1992. For further information, please contact: Phone: (511) 62-7050 / ICAE FAX: (511) 871-3457 / ICAE E-MAIL: ax!mulher ax!f92/ICAE 55 Environmental Education ngonet 5:13 pm Dec 17, 1992 1 | |
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