This was the theme of the 5th World Environmental
Education Congress, held in Montreal this past May 10 to 14.
The subject certainly grabs our attention and requires serious consideration
since it underscores the major challenges facing us and future generations.
This environmental congress involved hundreds of lecturers and delegates from
all five continents who came together to discuss and contribute reflections on
the following issues:
? 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?
These major questions help us with our necessary reflection on the environmental
crisis we are confronted with. However, the challenge is considerable when we
understand that our modern societies no longer know how to recognize the
intelligence of nature.
“People have lost their connection with nature. We believe that environmental
education must restore this connection, and we must find concrete ways to
achieve this,” explains Ms. Lucie Sauvé, Congress Co-chair.
If it took us four centuries to lose this connection with the Earth, with all of
the imbalances it brings, we will undoubtedly need generations of education,
love, will and the transmission of a culture in harmony with Nature in order to
restore it, to revive the meaning of life and profoundly human values in order
to rediscover, once again, the art of living together.
The philosopher Pythagoras said, “I am not wise; I am a friend of nature and
nature is wise.” It is high time for us to return to that which is essential and
sow the seeds for a new and better world, which can only take root in the heart
of each and every one of us.
