GREENWAY - Central and East European Network of Environmental NGOs

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GREENWAY

Central and East European Network of Environmental NGOs

Address:	GREENWAY, P.O.Box 163, 814 99 Bratislava, SLOVAK REPUBLIC Tel./fax: +421.7.5414674 E-mail: greenway@isternet.sk

Greenway Newsletter

N u m b e r - 2 5

I. GREENWAY...GREENWAY?...GREENWAY!

CLEAN UP THE WORLD

Clean Up the World is a community based environment project, developed and coordinated from Sydney by Clean Up Australia. It is designed to focus international attention on the massive volumes of waste choking our planet. This waste is not only a serious threat to our local and global environments, but also has a significant implications for the health and well-being of many milions of people.

The goals are:

to bring together citizens from different regions in a simple activities that will positively assist their local environments,
to share the information and practical experience on the issue,
to create a media focus for clean-up activities thereby raising the awareness of governments, industries and communities about local environmental issues, particularly waste minimisation, recycling and waste management.

GREENWAY Head Office in Bratislava introduced and coordinated Clean Up activities in Slovak Republic together with nine NGOs. The Clean Up the World event was organized on 15-18 September 1995 and followed as a whole year campaign in many countries of the world. GREENWAY dedicated the project to the ENCY`95 National Program. The Clean Up activities were carried out by groups of volunteers - by GREENWAY NGO members in Slovakia which were working together with other citizens in their own communities to remove garbage from designated sites, separate waste for recycling and reusing. Sites are often public areas such as parks, markets, roadsides, beaches, rivers banks, etc.

The activities were complemented by environmental awareness seminars and discussions, community meetings, school activities, exhibitions and music entertaitments.

On the whole, Clean-ups activities engender a positive community spirit and unite the participants in a dedicated commitment to improve their own environment.

Principal sponsor for CUW in Slovakia was the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Bratislava and many local sponsors from all kind of business, organisations and local governments.

Information on concrete activities were published in national newspapers and journals in regional and local newspapers.

National, regional and local broadcasting corporations and TV informed continuosly on the events organized in different regions of Slovakia.

During the project period served GREENWAY as a contact point, clearinghouse, information service, organization and coordination body for Slovak Republic Clean Up the World campaign.

Amount of inhabitants involved: approximately 12.635 individuals and 162 schools (nursery, primary, secondary).

Results:

Slovak Republik was involved in the Clean Up the World campaign as an international event for the first time in this year. The campaign engaged inhabitants - children from the schools of all levels, environmental non-governmental organizations, local governments, business, institutions and citizens of towns and villages to react actively for improvement of their own environment.

Improved cooperation with other organizations from all parts of the society in the communities. As our groups informed, sometimes it was surprising how posisitiv have had the people from administration offices react and helped by organization of the activities without any bureaucracy.

At the coordination meeting and from practical activities experiences came up new ideas and themes for follow up the campaign.

Improved information of environmental problems and concrete activities of citizens in cooperation with mass-media.

The project activities have raised new ideas for specialized work of NGOs, and so new impulses for the democracy process in the country.

Cooperation with the CUW Coordination Committee in Czech Republic, exchange of information, written and published materials, experiences from the coordination and organization of the event in the both republics.

The information on the Clean Up project organized by GREENWAY was presented at the NGO-exhibition on the Pan-European Ministerial Conference "Environment for Europe", October 1995, Sofia, Bulgaria.

GREENWAY received an acknowledgement for coordination the campaign in Slovakia from Clean Up the World international coordination office based in Sydney, Australia.

Finally, the Clean Up the World campaign in Slovak Republik could be evaluated as a successful event which has raised environmental awareness of the inhabitants. It maked people enthusiastic about supporting this worthwhile community project. It could be seen as a framework for mobilizing community resources for sustainable development.

(Source: Campaign final report from Elena Vartikova)

II. FROM GREENWAY MAIL BOX

SAVING ENERGY IN SCHOOLS

The German Association for Environmental Education (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Umwelterziehung or DGU) was founded in 1983 as an organisation for educators at university and school level. The main focus of its seminars, information events and projects are the experiences of children and adults in their natural and built environment. The DGU currently co-ordinates the Energy Saving in Schools project which invelves schools in an attempt to reduce the energy consumption of pupils and teachers. As a direct benefit the money saved is shared between the school and the school owners (city, government, private). The project presently operates in three Bundeslander and will hopefully be extended to form a European project and network.

The DGu is the national co-ordinator for the Eco-Schools project of the Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe (FEEE). It is also responsible for the national evaluation of the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN).

For further information please contact:

FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN

The Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) met in Beijing, China, 4-15 September,1995. There were more than 50,000 participants (including those attending the NGO forum), which made it the largest UN world gathering.

At the FWCW there were four official Negotiating Groups, two Working Groups and two Contact Groups, plus numerous informal groups, working towards reaching an agreement on the draft Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration.

Prior to the FWCW, six Regional Groups held meetings at different locations around the world. Each group adopted a regional platform that identified specific problems faced by women in that region. Two meetings of an Expert Group were also held before the conference, focusing on specific subjects to be discussed at the FWCW: gender; education and training; women and economic decision-making; institutional and financial arrangements for the implementation of the FWCW's Platform of Action; and the Agenda for Peace. At the 39th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), March-April 1995, which served as the prepatory committee for the FWCW, the draft Platform for Action was presented and delegates had the opportunity to examine and discuss it for the first time.

The Platform for Action was adopted in Beijing. It is a document that reaffirms the human rights of women and the girl child and calls for action to achieve equality, development and peace. It identifies, analyzes and invites action by Governments on each specific subject discussed. A number of reservations werw made on the health and sexuality sections, which reflect the abiding political amd cultural differences that still exist. Then translation of the word "gender" also caused reservations to parts of the document. The texts of a number of commitments were expanded, including the call to protect human rights activists working in environments where freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are restricted, and the right for women to exercise control over their sexual and reproductive health.

The 38-paragraph long Beijing Declaration that was finally adopted had substantially changed from the original version. The dovument is linked to the Platform of Action, and highlights and repeats various parts of it.

Delegates, NGOs and observers complained that environmental issues were given relatively little attention in Beijing. For example, references were made to documents of other UN conferences as to how unremunerated work could be measured. The effects that some macroeconomic issues have on women were also discussed, but did not lead to any action in relation to the UNCED women's agenda.

As the relationship,between NGOs and the UN system is evolving, the UN is to conduct a review of its procedures for NGO access to its negotations.

The Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration will be presented to the UN General Assembly in New York doring its 50th session this fall.

(Source: Earth Negotations Bulletin, September 1995)

DANUBE BASIN

A governmental expert meeting was held 20-21 September,in Budapest, to discuss the Fourth Draft of the Danube Basin Ecological Convention.

The participants agreed that the process of regional cooperation should be continued and that future efforts should build upon the results achieved so far. Due to the changes in the political context of the proposed "Ecological Convention", it was agreed that the next step should be a Ministerial Declaration on the Danube Basin Ecology, rather than a Convention.

The Temporary Secretariat was mandated to prepare the first draft for a Ministerial Declaration. The draft will then be submitted to the European Union, governments and interested governmental and non-governmental organisations for review and comments.

III. CONFERENCES, SEMINARS, COURSES, OTHER EVENTS

II. INTERNATIONAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE

The International Sustainable Development Research Network have announced their second international conference, which is to be held at the Manchester Conference Centre (UK) on 18-19 March 1996. The conference seeks to bring together an international interdisciplinary audience to tackle the many issues connected with sustainable development, to share experiences and to begin to work towards solutions. By building informal partnerships and in offering opportunities to discuss ideas, this conference will clarify and advance the complex debates surrounding sustainable development.

This conference follows on from a number of successful similar events hosted by ERP Environment throughout the course of 1995. These included a conference on Eco Management and Auditing (3-4 July), which was aimed primarily at those interested in corporate environmental performance and focused upon an in-depth examination of environmental management systems.

The second event hosted in 1995 was a European Environment Conference which was aimed at policy makers, NGO's, consultants and researchers. The focus was upon practical papers which sought to improve environmental performance in a European context.

Papers for the conference to held in March 1996, are sought from researchers and practitioners in the fields of sustainable development and environmental management. Papers can address any area particularly interested in those focusing upon the following topics:

Definitions, concepts and implications of sustainable development Social sustainability Cultural integrity and indigenous populations Monitoring of sustainable development Poverty population and health Institutional arrangements Planning and implementation strategies Economic policy instruments Business strategies for sustainable development Local action for sustainable development Agenda 21 Co-operation and alliances for a sustainable future NGO's The role of women and minority groups Environmental management

For further information on both the Network and the Conference, please contact:

INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE

Rome, Italy will be the venue for the International Congress on Environment and Climate, which will be held from 4-6 March 1996. The event, sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities, UNESCO and the Italian Government, will discuss issues related to the environment and to climate.

For further information on the conference, please contact:

Tel: +39.40.2140 203
fax: +39.40.327 307
E-mail: carrion@tango.ogs.trieste.it

REVIEW OF EUROPEAN NATURE CONSERVATION YEAR (ENCY)

"Europe has evolved and transformed while our environment still faces increasingly serious threats. Once more it is necessary to affirm the need to conserve nature throughout Europe, and not just in protected areas. This is why the Council of Europe decided to declare 1995 European Nature Conservation Year." - Naturopa, No 73, 1993.

ENCY was officially launched in January 1995 with the intention of encouraging a new concept of nature, one in which human activity is compatible with the needs of nature and wildelife. The overall theme for ENCY was 'nature conservation outside protected areas'.

Environmental education is a vital component of any conservation programme, therefore, it is important to review the extent to which environmental education has been incorporated within the ENCY initiative. It is for this reason that ERTCEE is hosting a European Summit to review the place of environmental education within ENCY.

The summit aims to:

Provide participants with an opportunity to express their views of ENCY
Review examples of activities undertaken as part of ENCY
Examine the contribution of ENCY to environmental education and nature conservation within both the formal and non-formal education sectors
Develop recommendations for similar events based upon the experiences of ENCY

This event will take place on 12-14 January 1996.

For further information, please contact:

EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY:
Taking Responsibility in Higher Education

The Council for Environmental Education (UK), is to host an annual national conference and general meeting on 29 November 1995.The theme for the conference will be Education for Sustainability:Taking Responsibility in Higher Education. Dr Anthony Cortese has agreed to act as guest speaker for the event and will report on a recent workshop on the principles of sustainability in higher education. Dr Cortese established the Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute (USA), which received an environmental award from President Bush in 1991 and promoted co- operation by university presidents world-wide to expand the role of third level institutions in environmental education and research.

The Council has also prepared a series of publications to compliment the issues involved in the conference. This series will focus upon the priorities highlighted by the Toyne Report produced by the Department of Education.

Guidelines and case studies relating to the introduction of an environmental cross-curricular theme for higher education will be discussed. The series aims to develop environmental education policy and practice within higher education, with particular emphasis upon the needs of industry. It will also provide assistance for course managers to enhance their curricula and encourege and act upon the implications of their personal and professional decisions.

Among the titles included in the series are:

Adult and Continuing Education Built Environment Engineering Health and Well-being Rural Environment Sport, Leisure, Hospitality and Tourism

For further information on either the conference or the series, please contact:

IV. IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING/USEFUL TO KNOW

FROM AWARENESS TO LIFESTYLE:
Environmental Education

The University of Kalmar, Sweden, in collaboration with the University of Derby, England, is to offer a module on environmental education to preservice primary school teachers for the 7-12 age group. The module will involve ten weeks of full time study.

This module is designed for students from all nationalities who are intending to become primary school teachers and will be of particular relevance for members of the European Teacher Education Network (ETEN) within the Erasmus programe.

The definition of environmental education that the module seeks to promote is that "environmental education should encourage engagement in enviromental issues. It should create learning situations, which develop the sort of attitudes which will engender concern for the preservation of the environment and welfare within the community. Environmental education should also instil in the minds and hearts of all people the understanding and the commitment necessary to achieve sustainable development in the world environment."

The aims of the module are to:

Enhance students knowledge and awareness of the inter dependence that exists between people and their environment
Highlight Sweden and Kalmar as models of environmental education
Encourage students to make their own decisions about attitudes regarding sustainable development

The module is divided into two parts-a General Section and an Issues Section.Topics to be covered within the General Section include environmental problems; ecocycles in nature and in the community; environmental ethics and the rights of common access to private land. Those covered within the Issues Section include forests and forestry, energy and urban studies.

For further information, please contact:

SOFIA CONFERENCE LANDS SUPPORT FOR A NETWORK OF REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CENTERS IN THE NIS

Several countries signed a letter of intent at the Sofia "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference to support the establishment of a network of regional environmental centers in the Newly Independent States (NIS). The show of support was the result of a feasibility study, conducted over a 3-month period and presented at the conference by the Regional Environmental Center (REC), revealing there is a serious need for a REC- type service organization in the NIS that fosters public participation in environmental decisionmaking and promotes regional cooperation. The study was commissioned by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) Working group.

"The US government supports the establishment of a regional environmental center network in the NIS because the feasibility study shows there is a large demand for the services that are provided currently by the REC in Budapest. We've seen great success with the Budapest center in building a network of NGOs and providing training and information, and I think this is a very important service that is needed in Russia, the Ukraine and Moldova, as well as other parts of the former Soviet Union," said Dan Thompson, program coordinator for the US EPA.

On the donor side, the European Commission, Finland, Norway, the REC and Switzerland all joined the United States as supporters of the project, set to begin in 1996. Recipient countries Ukraine, Moldova and the Russian Federation also showed their support for the idea by signing the letter of intent alongside their Western counterparts.

The feasibility study is based on a needs analysis and the experiences of REC Budapest, and recommends that a new, independent organization with its headquarters in the Ukraine be set up to serve Russia, Moldova and the Ukraine. It also suggests that expansion to other countries in the region be undertaken at a later date.

The proposed organization would be similar to. but independent from the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, and would provide all environmental stakeholders with information services, training and capacity-building programs, as well as grants to NGOs in the countries under its mandate. Its main mission would be to foster public participation and promote regional cooperation, two areas which are still underdeveloped in the NIS.

The founding and operation of the new organisation for a 5-year period would cost USD 10.5 million. Geographical extesion would increase the budget accordingly.

The 120-page feasibility study was prepared by a team of 20 NIS experts under the supervision of the REC and submitted as an official background document to the ministerial conference. It is the first time such an assessment has been conducted on such a wide scope. The study was financially supported by the EU, the United States, Finland, Norway, France and the REC.

The executive summary of the NREC feasibility study is available at the Regional Environmental Center.

Please contact the Information Exchange Team at REC head office in Budapest.

THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER GIVEN INTERNATIONAL STATUS AND A NEW HOME

In a signing ceremony at the Sofia "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference, the Hungarian government made official its announcement to grant the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) international organization is a huge vote of confidence for the REC's activities, which have been ongoing in Central and Eastern Europe since 1990. The transformation places it on a level similar to that of the International Red Cross.

As part of the status change, the Hungarian government donated a large piece of property, appraised at ECU 5 million, to the REC. Situated just north of Budapest in the small town of Szentendre, the property will be home to the REC's headquarters,which are now in Budapest. REC officials hope the donation will encourage other governments to make additional contributions that will ensure the REC's financial sustainability in the future.

"The Regional Environmental Center has proved that Central and Eastern Europe can benefit from environmental cooperation amongst and between both governments and NGOs. The new international status of the REC and the donation of the Szentendre site together represent a formal recognition of the REC's activities carried out over the last five years. The Hungarian government continues to regard the REC as an international organization with an international mission," says Dr.Ferenc Baja, Hungary's Minister of Environment.

Both the chonge in status and the property donation are a real boon to the REC. The elevated stature will give the REC more visibility on the international stage. And the property, which offers an office building, conference facilities, and several bungalows, will support the Center's activities by providing a place where NGOs, government officials and business leaders can participate in workshops, seminars and training sessions.

"Pragmatically, the status change and property donation will allow us to operate more efficiently. With offices and support staff in 13 Central and Eastern European countries, we are already operating as an international organization promoting cooperation within CEE and acting as a bridge between East and West," says Dr. Bedrich Moldan, Chairman of the REC's board of directors.

Contact:

Tel: +36.1. 250-3401

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