At the 1st Ibero-American Congress for Sustainable Development, today, in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization (UNESCO) announced the launching in Latin America and the Caribbean of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
The UNESCO coordinator in Brazil in the area of Environment and Science, Celso Schenkel, informed that the Decade was launched by the United Nations (UN) on March 1, in New York, and is now reaching the Latin American and Caribbean region.
He recalls that the initiative assigns UNESCO responsibility for acting as a catalyst for the activities of various agencies that are part of the UN system, as well as governments, the business sector, and society as a whole.
Schenkel praised Brazil’s government policies and environmental legislation, which he considers “very solid.”
According to the specialist, the vast dimensions of the country lead to disparities in the way the environmental issue is treated.
“We hope that this operational capacity, not only of the State, but of the society, extends throughout the country, which is of immense proportions, especially the Amazon,” he affirms.
The coordinator judges that the matter of global sustainability involves reconciling the appropriation of environmental assets in a “less prodigal” manner with the development of a better distribution of these benefits.
“You are depreciating the natural patrimony and concentrating more income, and this engenders a huge contradiction, since the country possesses a fantastic patrimony that is not distributed evenly among the population.”
Nevertheless, in Schenkel’s assessment, Brazil is very well positioned in the Latin American ranking of sustainable development, because government policies have made substantial progress and taken on the nature of a process.
“There exists a coherence in government policies, as much in the national system of conservation units as in the area of water management, which demonstrates that Brazilian society has incorporated them as important policies in the administration of the Brazilian State.
“The country has shown that it is capable of generating knowledge in this field and discharging the international commitments it assumed,” he believes.
Agência Brasil
