The 2015 edition of Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, from 3 to 5 June, is taking place in Brussels. The theme of this year is nature and biodiversity, with a special attention on maintaining Europe’s nature and biodiversity and to create jobs and stimulate investment.
Representatives of Partenalia attended the conferences of the first day, 3th of June, where different issues related to environment and European policies were discussed.
Reconnecting with nature and biodiversity
One of the main issues highlighted in the conferences of the first day was the importance of the protection of the biodiversity and ecosystem services. The different speakers insisted on the need of reconsider and think thoroughly the relationship and mutual dependencies at all levels between nature and human.
Mr. William Lee Steffen, Professor, of the Australian National University, introduced the term ‘Biosferal integrity’, referring to the fact of protecting the world in a sustainable way, using all the resources that human need but without excesses.
In this sense, Mr. Dirk Holemans, Director of Oikos, Think Tank for Social-Ecological Change, proposed the idea of using the democracy as a tool for social creativity, and to introduce changes in the dairy life of citizens to protect the environment and to create new policies.
Mr. Almir Surui, General Coordinator of the People Paiter Suruí Metareilá Association, explained the problems of the Brazilian deforestation and introduced the main aspects of the project that the association that he leads has created with Google.
The future of Europe
One of the main objectives of the Green Week 2015 is to give awareness on the future of the environment in Europe. It provided an overview of the situation of nature and biodiversity in Europe, focus on the main trends and the type of bold and innovative action and political responses.
Mr. Ronan Uhel, from the Environment Agency, made a brief summary of the different European policies and the importance of creating a more innovative legislation in this sense.
Beyond that, Mr. Paul Leadley, from the Université Paris-Sud, introduced the topic of proper implementation of the European environmental directives at national level as it is at this level when some problems are detected.
The MEP Mr. Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety of the European Parliament, explained how the European Parliament is working in the environment in Europe, and how all the political groups are more concerned about this topics. Mr. Gerbrandy insisted as well in the introduction of innovative processes.
