PREVIOUS CONFERENCES:
Global Youth Conference
on
Forests, Water, Health and Peace
17-18 March 2011
Geneva International Conference Center (CICG)
The Global Youth Conferences Programme is a youth leadership programme and international forum for cultural exchange, sharing of experience, finding solutions and taking action together.
Programme
Thursday, March 17th
9.00 – 9.30 Welcome to the Conference and Introduction
9.30 – 10.30 Why are forests important to you and me?
Vita de Waal, Foundation for GAIA
Forest Certification: Thorston Arndt Representative of the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
Forest in Mountains. How politics face the relation between two sensitive ecosystems. Blanche Villard, Foundation for sustainable development of mountainous regions.
Forest and the Law, forest rights, conservation: Professor Johannah Bernstein, Environmental lawyer
Green Cross on Forests: Adam Koniuszewski, Chief Operating Officer Green Cross International
10.30 — 11.00 Coffee break
11.00 — 12.30 Experts and Youth panel
12.30 — 13.30 LUNCH
13.30 — 14.00 Forests, Water, Health, Peace and Youth
Where does it all connect and trigger lasting action? Heiner Benking, Council on Global Issues.
14.00 — 15.30 Debates
15.30 — 16.00 Break
16.00 — 17.00 Presentation of the debates results, votes.
Friday, March 18th
9.00 — 9.50 Water Resources
Challenges and Opportunities.Nidal Salim, PhD, Director of the Global Institute for Water, Environment and Health (GIWEH)
International Water Trade: Ms. Nazarova and Ms. Zerrouk, interns at the GIWEH
9.50 — 10.00 The special edition water
Positive news for fair global citizens and the Youth Leader Magazine
10.00 — 10.30 Water
Expert Knowledge, Good Model Solutions and Youth Leadership in Schools and Classrooms. Heiner Benking, Eric Schneider, Positive Nett-Works, Youth Leader Magazine, Berlin.
10.30 — 11.00 Coffee break
11.00 — 11.30 Water as a Cross-Cutting Concern and Issue
Wondwosen (Wondy) K. Asnake, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
The Future of the Earth’s Resources: Can We Avoid a Global Crisis: Llewellyn Young, Senior Advisor for Asia and Oceania at Ramsar.
11.30 — 12.30 Experts and Youth panel
12.30 — 13.30 LUNCH
13.30 — 15.00 Paul Bristow of Eco-Pratique
Youth, Sustainable Economic and Social Development, and the Culture of Peace: Oliver Rizzi Carlson, Tim Blattmann and Bruno Aguiar, IOH (It’sOneHumanity)
15:00 — 15:30 IHTEC and the Water and Biodiversity Dedications of Science
for Peace and Pugwash, Julia Morton-Marr, IHTEC Founding President (Toronto)
15:30 — 16:00 Ideas, Actions and Solutions for Today and Tomorrow
Saturday, March 19th
International building , conference room
- Group Discussions on conference topics open to all (who have or have not been present at the conference)
- Issues include: Forest, Water, Health and Peace.
- Presentations of the discussions results.
- Conclusions and Recommendations.
Sunday, March 20th
Optional visit to the Arboretum in Aubonne
Monday, March 21st
World Forest Day (official)
Equinox Earth Day
Tuesday, March 22nd
World Water Day (official) at the United Nations (registration necessary)
For the day schedule see World Water Day Programme
Speakers’ bios
Vita de Waal was involved for 10 years in what was to become one of the first NGOs to create the eco-village concept and that was recently found to have the lowest ecological footprint ever measured in the industrialized world. Vita is a founding member of over ten international NGOs and is currently Executive Trustee of the Foundation for Gaia (UK).
PEFC is the world’s largest forest certification system. Their credible standards seek to transform the way forests are managed globally – and locally - to ensure that all of us can enjoy the environmental, social and economic benefits that forests offer. Thorston Arndt is the Head of Communications at PEFC.
Blanche Villard spent several years in tourism and regional promotion of different cultural mountaineers in Nepal, Kyrgyzstan and the Alps. The management of space and the relationship of humans to their environment have always been at the heart of her interest. Thus, creative activities, sports and education with young and old have always accompanied her career to enrich the exchange with the current players and future of mountain regions. Today in the FDDM (Foundation for sustainable development of mountainous regions) she accompanies Valais municipalities hoping to achieve sustainable development and continues to educate young audiences in Valais to respect his or her natural environment, social, cultural or economic.
Professor Johannah Bernstein is an international environmental lawyer. She is currently engaged by the Stockholm Environment Institute, as well as the Swedish and Danish Environment Ministries whom she advises on their substantive preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. As well, she teaches international environmental law at Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 campus in Arizona, and is now currently leading a number of WSSD-related capacity building seminars for southern NGOs around the world under the auspices of the Heinrich Boell Foundation (and previously with LEAD International).
Green Cross International (GCI) is an independent non-profit and non-governmental organisation that works to address the inter-connected global challenges of security, poverty eradication and environmental degradation through a combination of high level advocacy and local projects. GCI is headquartered in Geneva and has a growing network of national offices in over 30 countries. The call for setting up a “red cross” for the environment was made during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Having stated that “after the fall of the Berlin Wall the most pressing challenge for humanity relates to the relationship between man and nature”, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was asked to lead this effort and became the founder of Green Cross International.
Adam Koniuszewski is the Chief Operating Officer of Green Cross International. His areas of expertise include the development and oversight of the corporate communication strategy including corporate social responsibility program development. Adam is actively involved in social and humanitarian projects.
Heiner Benking is an independent facilitator, writer, curator, scientist, consultant, and futurist. His studies range from geophysics, to economy and philosophy and professional focus on management and marketing, coordination/communication, computer graphics and visualisation and multi-lingual/cultural knowledge organisation. He was consultant for example in UNDP and UNEP projects since the late 70ies and 80ies and presently serves as Secretary of the Council on Global Issues and Positive Nett-Works
Nidal Salim, Ph.D., obtained his undergraduate degree from Damascus University in applied geophysics, his Masters degree in Groundwater Hydrology, from UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands and a doctorate in the Application of Remote Sensing and GIS in the water cycle from the University of Geneva. In 2007 Nidal Salim founded the Global Institute for Water Environment and Health. Nidal Salim was involved in collaborations with different research institutes, universities and International Organizations, such as the Middle East Peace Process/Water Working Group/EXACT, the World Health Organization (WHO), World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nation Environmental Program (UNEP).
Llewellyn Young is the Senior Advisor for Asia and Oceania at Ramsar. The Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) — called the “Ramsar Convention” — is an intergovernmental treaty that embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the ecological character of their Wetlands of International Importance and to plan for the “wise use”, or sustainable use, of all of the wetlands in their territories. Unlike the other global environmental conventions, Ramsar is not affiliated with the United Nations system of Multilateral
Environmental Agreements, but it works very closely with the other MEAs and is a full partner among the “biodiversity-related cluster” of treaties and agreements.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) coordinates United Nations environmental activities, assisting developing countries in implementing environmentally sound policies and practices. Wondwosen (Wondy) K. Asnake is the Regional Coordinator, Harmful Substances and Hazardous Waste (HSHW) Sub-Programme and Civil Society Partnerships at UNEP.
Paul Bristow has spent the last 15 years working as a futurist in various technology companies. When, in 2009, he applied these skills to what he saw going on in the world around him he started a non-profit association in France, called Eco-Pratique. Eco-Pratique is targeted squarely at making it easy to bring ecological solutions into our daily lives, in a very hands-on, practical, and local way. This has become part of “Transition Ferney-Voltaire”, which is becoming one of many Transition Towns around the world, aiming to make the changes we need in our daily lives in order to deal with climate change at a very local, resilient and sustainable level. He doesn’t have all the answers, but he has a number of questions we should all be asking.
Oliver Rizzi Carlson grew up in Italy, the US and Switzerland. He studied Peace Education at the UN-mandated University for Peace and is the Editor of the Global Campaign for Peace Education Newsletter. He works on Culture of Peace issues as Representative at the UN for the United Network of Young Peacebuilders, Operation Peace Through Unity, as well as the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace. He is a member of the Youth Team drafting the World Report from Civil Society at the end of the Decade for a Culture of Peace, and speaks on Peace Education at conferences in various countries.
It’sOneHumanity (IOH) is a youth-led NGO run by a small international team of dedicated individuals and supported by a team of Coordinators active in all corners of the globe. IOH runs The Humanitarian Social Network, a strategic effort to democratize humanitarianism. Its goal is to create and unite humanitarians around the world, engage them in discussion and facilitate the mutual education process to ultimately create powerful grass-root social movements that will help us materialize our vision of a world that knows no boundaries and collectively confronts pressing issues as one humanity. It’sOneHumanity is represented by Tim Blattmann and Bruno Aguiar.
Moustapha Kamal Gueye, Ph.D., is the Economic Affairs Officer at UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economy Economics and Trade Branch in Geneva. He works on the Green Economy Initiative. The UNEP-led Green Economy Initiative assists governments in shaping and focusing policies, investments and spending towards a range of green sectors, such as clean technologies, industry, renewable energies, water services, transport, waste management, green buildings, and sustainable agriculture and forests, as a means of promoting sustainable economic growth, decent job creation, and poverty reduction, while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions, extracting and using less natural resources and creating less waste.
Mamadou Moussa Diakhite is Manager of UNEP Climate Change Programme (CCP). The mission of the UNITAR Climate Change Programme (CCP) is to enhance the capacity of government and civil society representatives in the developing world to assist developing countries improve their participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and their adaptation process.
Eric Nicolas Schneider, YL’s Creative Director, is member of UN DESD projects in Germany, Italy, Canada and Argentina. Eric has many good relations to avantgarde thinkers, changemakers, good knowledge of progressive education, intercultural relations, facilitation, new media and creating win-win benefit cooperations. He has been appointed member of UNESCO Germany’s National Round Table for the Implementation of the UN Decade for ESD in Germany. And of the New Media Task Force for ESD. His YL related work is used by sustainability education trainers, in German schools, has been covered in major media, lauded by innovators, and educators and youth are requesting more.
Dame Julia Morton-Marr, DStG, B.Ed., Dip.T., Mississauga, Ontario, Canada - Music consultant; teacher, educational curriculum consultant and innovator; consultant in integrated studies; speaker; geographer, academic and system scientist. She has been teaching for a total of 45 years and uses technology to train teachers and students. In 1993 Julia founded the International Holistic Tourism Education Centre - IHTEC, and its flagship program International School Peace Gardens to prevent future wars through Peace & Sustainability Education. Honoured as one of nine Canadian women in the “1000 PeaceWomen Across the Globe” who have been nominated for the 2005, 2006, 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.