The Earth Charter Volunteers Network is bringing about very positive results! An example is the fruitful partnership that the Earth Charter Secretariat is starting with an Austrian-based NGO called INEX (International Network of Educational Exchange).
INEX offers summer university programs to several European universities; one of the programs is a short course on Sustainable Development for Master’s students of different disciplines, which takes place in
Philipp Schoeffmann, Program Manager of INEX, joined our volunteers’ network early this year. While he was thinking about how to collaborate with the
Following this idea, we proposed that the students undertook an assessment that compared the level of commitment and level of action of different stakeholders of the tourism sector, towards practicing ethical principles for sustainability. They used the EC-Assess tool for conducting this research, which focused on a very touristic area of the Central Pacific coast of
The EC-Assess allowed the students to identify, for each of the stakeholders, which principles of the Earth Charter presented more promising opportunities to bring about change towards sustainability in Quepos and Manuel Antonio. The students identified different workable solutions that could be implemented by the stakeholders in areas such as wetlands and national park management, solid waste management, transportation, environmental education and community consciousness, water resources management, and industrial and commercial social responsibility.
In preparation to conduct the research, on 12 July 2008 the Earth Charter Secretariat offered a workshop where the students not only learned about how to use EC-Assess, but also learned about the
After they conducted their research, the students presented their results in a Conference that was held at the University for Peace campus, on 23 July. A panel with several recognized personalities in the sustainable development field in
We hope that the experiences lived with this course in