World Environmental Education Day

Learning to live in harmony with the Earth

Environmental education is one of the most powerful tools we have to build a sustainable future.
It means understanding, respecting, and protecting the environment that surrounds us — and acting every day to reduce our impact on the planet.

Each year, World Environmental Education Day invites citizens, schools, institutions, and associations to reflect on the importance of developing a shared ecological awareness that combines scientific knowledge, conscious behavior, and collective responsibility.

📚 Origins and goals of the day

🌍 October 14 – World Environmental Education Day

This observance was created to promote the global spread of environmental culture. Its roots go back to the 1972 Stockholm Conference, the first major United Nations summit dedicated to the environment, which laid the foundation for a new way of understanding the relationship between humans and nature.

Since then, environmental education has been recognized as both a right and a duty: everyone should have access to the knowledge needed to understand environmental issues and take part in solving them.

The goal is clear: to develop informed, critical, and active citizens capable of driving cultural change toward sustainability.

🌱 Today’s challenges

Educating for the environment today means addressing global issues that affect everyone’s lives:

  • Climate change, which alters ecosystems and livelihoods;
  • Loss of biodiversity, with species and habitats increasingly under threat;
  • Pollution of air, water, and soil;
  • Overexploitation of natural resources.

Understanding the causes and consequences of these phenomena is the first step toward acting consciously — in schools, workplaces, and everyday life.

🤝 From knowledge to action

Environmental education also means building active communities capable of putting learning into practice.
Every small gesture matters: reducing waste, recycling correctly, choosing renewable energy, favoring sustainable transport, or taking part in local conservation activities.

Schools and associations play a key role: citizen science projects, clean-up days, ecology workshops, reforestation programs, and awareness campaigns are tangible examples of environmental education in action.

🌳 Foreste per Sempre’s commitment

For over twenty years, Foreste per Sempre ODV has promoted environmental awareness through education, reforestation, and scientific research.
From the forests of Costa Rica and Madagascar to the woodlands of the Modenese Apennines, our projects unite students, volunteers, and researchers in a common goal: to protect biodiversity and spread a living, participatory ecological culture.

Every tree planted, every school activity, every field mission is a chance to learn — and to teach — that we have only one Earth, and we must care for it together.

🔗 Learn more:
👉 World Environment Day – Official United Nations / UNEP site

👉 World Environmental Education Day