Excerpts on Environmental Education from Belgrade Charter
Environmental Education Goal
The goal of environmental education is: To develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones.
Environmental Education Objectives
The objectives of environmental education are:
1. Awareness: to help individuals and social groups acquire an awareness of and sensitivity to the total environment and its allied problems.
2. Knowledge: to help individuals and social groups acquire basic understanding of the total environment, its associated problems and humanity’s critically responsible presence and role in it.
3. Attitude: to help individuals and social groups acquire social values, strong feelings of concern for the environment and the motivation for actively participating in its protection and improvement.
4. Skills: to help individuals and social groups acquire the skills for solving environmental problems.
5. Evaluation ability: to help individuals and social groups evaluate environmental measures and education programmes in terms of ecological, political, economic, social, esthetic and educational factors.
6. Participation: to help individuals and social groups develop a sense of responsibility and urgency regarding environmental problems to ensure appropriate action to solve those problems
Audiences
The principal audience of environmental education is the general public. Within this global frame, the major categories are:
1. The formal education sector: including pre-school, primary, secondary and higher education students as well as teachers and environmental professionals in training and retraining;
2. The non-formal education sector: including youth and adults, individually or collectively from all segments of the population, such as the family, workers, managers and decision makers, in environmental as well as non-environmental fields.
Guiding Principles of Environmental Education Programmes
The guiding principles of environmental education are:
1. Environmental education should consider the environment in its totality – natural and man-made, ecological, political, economic, technological, social, legislative, cultural and esthetic.
2. Environmental education should be a continuous life-long process, both in-school and out-of-school.
3. Environmental education should be interdisciplinary in its approach.
4. Environmental education should emphasise active participation in preventing and solving environmental problems.
5. Environmental education should examine major environmental issues from a world point of view, while paying due regard to regional differences.
6. Environmental education should focus on current and future environmental situations.
7. Environmental education should examine all development and growth from an environmental perspective.
8. Environmental education should promote the value and necessity of local, national and international cooperation in the solution of environmental problems.
