Reflections on the 9^th world environmental education congress 2017 and re-proposing an event

The weec2017 congress took place in Vancouver, BC, Canada from Sept.9 – 15.  This is the second time I visited this part of the globe for such a purpose. The last time was in 2004 when I presented at the Society for Ecological Restoration conference held in Victoria, BC. Back then I finished my presentation with a view of the Chicago River as seen from the Michigan Avenue Bridge. I wrote about this experience in a previous post found on this blog:

 http://urban-watersheds.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-view-from-michigan-avenue-bridge.html.

This was the beginning of my exploration into what I termed the Bioshaft® design process. It has been 13 years since that presentation in Victoria, ironically my talk at the weec2017 is the culmination of some design concepts that came out of this process, so you might say that it is the completion of a cycle introduced while on the unceded lands of the First Nations and revisited at an advanced stage on that very same landscape, buffered by Salish waters, this time across the Strait of Georgia from that 2004 conference.

I was curious to learn what the state of environmental education is around the globe; it was my first attendance at this conference. What I learned is that there are plenty of caring and intelligent individuals imparting environmental knowledge onto their students. This fact makes the state of the environmental degradation harder to accept. That despite all our efforts the world’s health is declining before our eyes. That despite the hard work and sacrifice made by good people we are still stuck in an economic model that does not value life-supporting processes and keeps striving only to achieve more accumulation of monetary wealth for a declining percentage of the population. I felt my talk titled ‘The Commons as Classrooms’ appropriate to partially meet this challenge. This is the handout I provided:

The Congress had some extraordinary people, opening ceremonies included Shane Pointe, first nation elder; Princess Lalla Hasnaa of Morocco; Judith Guichon, lieutenant governor of British Columbia; Ekaterina Grigolova, deputy minister of environment, Georgia;  Mario Salomone, secretary general WEEC; David Zandvliet, institute for environmental learning, Canada; Elliot Harris, UN environmental program, Julia Heiss, UNESCO team leader of education and sustainable development; Charles Hopkins, UNESCO chair -reorienting teacher education among others.

The list of plenary speakers was unequaled including Haida leader Guujaaw, Dr. Jeannette Armstrong, Wade Davis, Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May, and husband and wife team, Dr. Tara Cullis and Dr. David Suzuki - none disappointed.

Jeannette Armstrong spoke of the role of natural cycles and the way these are interpreted in the first nation’s traditional understanding of life and how we can impart environmental education through this understanding. Wade Davis who had already influenced my thesis work many years ago through his book ‘Shadows in the Sun’, once again stirred my thoughts with his presentation on the importance of rituals among indigenous people of the world. Guujaaw gave a candid and wise portrayal of things that truly matter. Elizabeth May and Tara Cullis tackled political and activist roles in defending environmental health and David Suzuki made a strong case for being diligent, resilient and perseverant in the face of all the challenges we face.

Jeannette Armstrong’s and Wade Davis’ presentations brought to mind a project I had conceived back in 2013 for commemorating the centennial of the death of Martha, the last of her species.  You can read my post at the time at this link:

http://urban-watersheds.blogspot.com/2013/06/fly-kite-for-endangered-species-event.html

I am reviving the project, this time not to commemorate Martha, the passenger pigeon, although it would do that, however, the emphasis is now on the conference theme of weaving. One of the topics common to most of the talks I attended and also touched upon by the plenary speakers. For my own talk I produced this sign:

Therefore given the ritual connections and the weaving theme I thought about reviving the Fly a Kite for Endangered Species event. In her slogan, ‘weave the we”, Naomi Klein means the “we” to be all species of life on Earth. So who speaks for those that have no voice in our current paradigm? Having attended many conferences before, each time feeling the comradery and synergy of ideas among colleagues and peers from around the globe to then return to a daily routine to face all the challenges usually alone was something I dreaded. Also, something else gnawed at me, the reference to rituals solely associated with indigenous cultures, as if we, the white Caucasian-derived cultures are above such things. If we were to take the words from all the talks seriously then a ritualistic and symbolic gesture could be accepted and acted upon.

So, the Fly a Kite for Endangered Species event entered my thoughts, what better venue to promote it? The attendees are all affiliated with educational institutions and all are already involved in ways to disseminate environmental awareness. The Kite itself is a traditional object shared by many cultures and kite flying is a popular activity around the globe. While Wade Davis spoke of rituals he participated in, my thoughts about the kites brought me to the symbolic connection between it and the prayer flags used in Bhutan and Tibet where a prayer or good thoughts are written on the flag which is then planted in the ground for the wind to carry the message across the landscape to all living things. As well as the Japanese tradition of the prayer tree, where messages are written on small scrolls of paper that are appended to the branches of trees so that a similar wind distribution can take place, much like wind pollinated seeds, it is hoped that they will spread and germinate into healthy plants and flowers. Is this not what we hope our students to be? The seeds of a social/ environmental awareness that take root and assemble into a global family that values all life forms and can speak for all those creatures whose plight goes mostly unnoticed? Imagine all the messages from each participant taken by the four winds and through the jet streams carried across the globe. Now, in my thoughts the kites took on a symbolic function of the threads that are woven together by the participating students and through the internet in the form of videos, photos and chat rooms can be woven into a cohesive hope for our planet’s biodiversity. The way I envision the project to proceed is as follows: 

1) students from schools around the globe are asked to select and research endangered plants and animals from their geographic region
2) students are tasked with creating a report that includes visuals 
3) each student is asked to create a kite with the image of the plant or creature they chose
4) the kites are flown on a selected date
5) videos, potographs, interviews taken at the event are shared on a website created for such purpose where chat rooms can connect the students and teachers directly to each other and perhaps even begin student exchange opportunities
6) the event is accessibe to anyone via the website to continue the conversation and plan for additional activities as well as get informed on the regions's cocerns

This will be an annual festival. It will be interesting how climate change will be interpreted and its devastating consequences handled and reported from those experiencing them directly.

An art work by Bill Reid came to mind, I had seen it just the day before when I visited the gallery named for him and whose work fills its space. The work is titled ‘Mythic Messengers’, it is a long sculpture piece depicting main Haida myths. What intrigued me was that each myth connected to the next through the tongues of its protagonists. The thread was the voice; of course, the myths were handed down by oral traditions. In his book ‘The Raven Steals the Light’ written in collaboration with Robert Bringhurst, Bill Reid relegates the ‘Myth of the Dogfish Woman’ as epilog; the reason is that this myth has been lost. There are carving and graphic portrayals of it, but its storyline lost forever due to the oppression by the European conquerors. The myth has no longer a voice, it’s meaning severed from its visual portrayals. Its function within the Haida culture diminished. If we substitute the myths with living species how willing are we to lose forever that link? We must become the bridging tongues that keep them in the conversation.

Therefore, here is the revised event flyer:

I hope that through the World Environmental Education organization this project takes flight. 

I welcome comments and support, please contact me at domenicodalessandro20@gmail.com and visit 
https://www.facebook.com/flyakiteforendangeredspeciesevent/