IV INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION "PUBLIC ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION" Puschino, Moscow region, Russia, June 22 26, 1998 RESOLUTION

IV International conference "Public Environmental Education" hosted by Green Cross Russia is a next step in the program realization on environmental education and a natural continuation of three previous conferences "Environmental Education of Children (Moscow, 1995)", "Between Scholl and University (Tula, 1996)", "Environmental Education in Universities (Vladimir, 1997)".

The circle of conferences on environmental education showed that there is a wide range of like-minded persons who are ready to teach and to be tough, capable to think about problems of environment improvement and the ways of their tackling, there are no contradictions between the policy of the government and NGOs in the area of environmental education, there is a difference in the level of understanding and working methods of governmental and public organizations.

The present conference outlines that environmental literacy of the population is a major condition of environmental safety and sustainable development of society. The preferable form of public environmental education is Open Environmental University of various types (free, paid from the budget, paid, with the duration of teaching from several months to two years). Both centers of environmental education and scientific-pedagogical structures and authorities should be involved in the organizational process of these universities.

It is very important that all subjects of Russian Federation have to establish short-term courses on environmental education supported by local administrations for decision makers training. Russian Environmental Congress may become a co-organizer of this training.

The key input into public environmental education is made by public organizations. As their forms and methods are very different their efforts interrelation and coordination are necessary.

The conference participants made the following conclusions:

· Fundamentals of environmental education are the contemporary achievements of natural sciences and technologies as well as all aspects of humanitarian and social sciences (humanitarian aspects of technical knowledge);

· RF government have to commit relevant ministries and departments to establish strict control on the interpretation of ecological terms and meanings as well as work out proposals on the united ecological terminology (ecological glossary);

· One of the components of public environmental education is training of decision makers. The participants propose to organize a permanent seminar on the general environmental education of decisions makers of various levels using various forms of education;

· It was noted that State Duma of RF has to accelerate the adoption of the Law on Environmental Education. Public hearing should precede it for preliminary wide discussions;

· Mass media should be more active in environmental problems raising; it has to become true fighter for nature protection;

· The conference considers it necessary to push governmental and financial structures to assist to public organizations in the implementation programs on environmental education;

· It is expedient to organize a raw of seminars in the program framework "Cooperation of governmental, commercial and non-governmental organizations in public environmental education";

· Organizing committee should apply to Presidium of Russian Environmental Academy to establish a section "Public environmental organizations";

· It was particularly noted that it is necessary to inculcate into the public consciousness the idea on careful attention to nature resources and balanced ratio between production and consumption;

· Federal Ecological Fund should promote to the development of environmental education, in particular to support the V conference on environmental education.