Learning for our future world: scouting and education on the environment.

• Author: Missoni, Eduardo

As the world enters the first decade of the twenty-first century, the environmental problems facing mankind have moved to centre stage. It is true that the awareness of protecting the environment, and not threatening the survival of future generations in order to satisfy the needs and "wants" of the present generation, has soared in recent years. However, it is equally important to recognize that no society, no country, has yet fully embarked on the ambitious turnaround strategies that will make today's societies "sustainable". The reason is threefold: those strategies are painful and expensive, and therefore have to be implemented by Governments with the full support of populations; they imply a shift in values and consequently a shift in behaviour, and this requires not only a rational conviction but also a moral commitment; and this is, therefore, not only a matter of political debates but also of education. Education is a long process, particularly when it implies the acquisition of knowledge or skills, as well as the change of behaviour.

Being a matter of education, it is a matter which concerns Scouting. From the beginning, Scouting put a systematic emphasis on the importance of observing the wonderful processes of nature, understanding and protecting them. Perhaps the best way to illustrate how Scouting's founder Robert Baden-Powell considered the educational impact of activities in nature is to quote a paragraph addressed to 18- to 22-year-old Scouts. Talking about the forest, he wrote: "And yet in it all there is life and sensation, reproduction, death and evolution going on steadily under the same great law by which we are governed. Man and his nature-comrades among the forest plants and creatures. For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the forest is at once a laboratory, a club and a temple."

Scouting uses activities in nature with a threefold objective:

* A laboratory: a place where young people can discover our planet as a system of complex and fragile interactions that supports life and therefore has to be protected and saved for our benefit and that of future generations.

* A club: a place where young people can participate in the creation and development of a small-scale society for themselves, with its objectives and rules in harmonious relationship with the environment, as they do, for example, in a Scout camp.

* A temple: an opportunity for young people to discover the wonders of the universe and its spiritual...