TEHRAN –The Department of Environment (DOE) held the national environmental education day in Tehran on Tuesday.

Addressing the event, the head of the DOE, Shina Ansari, said environmental protection is a public duty, and national policy documents also emphasize the importance of environmental education, Mehr news agency.

Ansari underscored the significance of environmental education at an early age, saying that “to get out of the current situation, we need to focus on the education sector.”

The DOE, in cooperation with ministry of education, is planning to train eco-friendly students across the country to change the students’ attitude to the environment.

For his part, Education Minister, Alireza Kazemi, said the ministry is planning to integrate environmental awareness into formal and informal curricula.

“Today, the world is facing numerous threats. If we fail to address them, humans will be in great danger with nothing to be left for the future. 

The environmental crisis is one of the most important and fundamental challenges that humanity is facing. Environmental degradation has irreparable consequences that necessitate thinking of a solution,” he noted.

The official went on to say that teaching students about the environment and raising environmental awareness, as well as promoting the culture of conserving the environment, are among the fundamental solutions. 

Referring to measures taken in the field of education, Kazemi said the students can study environmental protection in vocational schools, and the Department of Environment has also established a technical-vocational school to train environmental education. “However, to be successful, we need public education to improve public understanding of the environment,” Kazemi stressed. 

World Environmental Education Day

World Environmental Education Day is celebrated on 26 January. Its main goal is to identify environmental issues both globally and locally and to raise awareness about the need for participation in order to conserve and protect the environment, mitigating the various levels of impact caused by climate change.

International Environmental Education Day has been celebrated every 26 January since 1975. That year, the International Workshop on Environmental Education was organised in Belgrade and attended by experts from more than 70 countries.

The event established the principles of environmental education within the framework of United Nations programmes. The outcome of the event was the publishing of the Belgrade Charter, which embodies the fundamental demands of environmental education, the goals of which are as follows: To develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively towards solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones.

It is important to understand the causes and effects of climate change, realise that sustainable development is the way to meet people’s current needs without compromising the capacity of future generations and take stock of the fact that protecting the environment means ensuring our own survival. It is also vital that we understand what renewable energies are and how they can help us take care of our planet, and that water is a natural, limited and scarce resource that is essential to life on Earth.

MT/MG