The 6th World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC) took place in Brisbane, Australia  from July 19th to July 23rd.

The congress was jointly organised by AAEE (Australian Association for Environmental Education) and by the WEEC Permanent Secretariat. The previous meetings took place in Portugal, Brazil, Italy, South Africa and Canada. The world meetings are coordinated by a Permanent Secretariat that has its headquarters in Torino, Italy, under the supervision of Istituto per l’Ambiente e l’Educazione Scholé Futuro Onlus.

The 7th congress will take place in Marrakech (Morocco) in 2013. During his greetings to the participants in the opening plenary session, the General Secretary of the WEEC network Mario Salomone observed that the congress represented an important result.

In spite of the distance and the international economic crises, more than 800 delegates from more than 50 countries from all continents joined the event, which involved plenary sessions, paper presentations, workshops, round tables and symposiums.

Climate is one of the main issues that emerged from the conference. How can people be educated to mitigate impacts on climate and adapt to the ongoing climate changes? How can we reinforce community resilience to the dramatic consequences of global warming?

Other recurring subjects of the congress were young people’s participation, context variety, partnership and networks (keywords that have been mentioned in many speeches), the role of universities, the need to increase the attention of decision makers to the themes of environmental education. A first chance to ask politicians and institutions for an increasing commitment in favour of environmental education could be the 2012 Rio Summit, which will take place 20 years from the historic 1992 Earth Summit.

Before the intervention of Fatima Benzayech of the King Mohammed VI Foundation for the Environment  which will organise the 7th WEEC, Mario Salomone closed the Conference underlining some of the main contemporary threats but also announcing some positive news, i.e. the increasing number of countries that are interested in hosting the next world congress. Abu Dhabi, China, Costa Rica, Ireland, Malaysia, Svweden and Switzerland have already proposed themselves as candidates to host the 8th World Environmental Education Congress in 2015, or have expressed the intention to do so. And many other countries have taken advantage of the Congress to gather information in order to present their nomination.

Read the conclusions of Mario Salomone

Visit the photogallery of the 6th WEEC