EE Workshop 2012 Report

APR Workshop on Environment Education in Scouting Report

Workshop on Environment Education in Scouting Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia

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Publication of World Organization of the Scout Movement Asia-Pacific Region 4/F ODC International Plaza Building 219 Salcedo Street, Legaspi Village Makati City, 1229 PHILIPPINES Tel:(63 2) 817 1675/818 0984 Fax: (63 2) 819 0093 Email: [email protected] Website: www.scout.org/asia-pacific September 2011


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_________________CONTENT___________________

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………..

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Workshop Aim………………………………………………

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Workshop Objectives……………………………………

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Venue………………………………………………………….

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Recommendation Committee

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Recommendations………………………………………

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APR initiative on Environment Education ……………………………………10

Biodiversity and conservation ……………………………………12

World Environment Activities

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Climate Change and the Role of youth ……………………………………16

World Scout Environment Programme (WSEP) & SCENES ……………………………………17

Environment and Partnership ……………………………………18

NSO Presentations ……………….…………………19


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_______________________________INTRODUCTION In collaboration with Persukutuan Pengakap Malaysia, Asia-Pacifc Region organized the APR Workshop on Environment Education in Scouting in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia from 4 to 7 June 2012, which is the second environmental event happened after the International Seminar on Environment Education and Biodiversity in Jakarta, Indonesia from 4 to 7 June 2011, at Cibubur Training Centre Camp of Gerakan Pramuka. ‘What Scouts Can do’ is the theme of the workshop to highlight Scouts as prime movers in creating positive change towards their environment. The workshop coincided with the celebration of World Environment Day on the 5th of June and will focus on environment education in Scouting. The workshop aimed to support NSOs with the delivery of environmental education programmes using experiential education and implement projects on biodiversity. And also to celebrate the 40 th Anniversary of UNEP on 5th June. Forty-one (41) participants came from 12 countries, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Scouts of China, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia as the host country. The workshop was an opportunity to raise awareness of environmental issues and identify local actions that Scouts could undertake, to supports NSOs and to encourage them to take an active role in developing environment education programmes and adopt the World Scout Environment Programme of WOSM; and also to establish a network of potential leaders who can lead, monitor, and evaluate the environment activities in their countries and share information on existing partnerships in environment.


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_____________WORKSHOP AIM_____________ The workshop aimed to support NSOs with the delivery of environmental education programmes using experiential education and implement projects on biodiversity

· ________WORKSHOP OBJECTIVES_________ · · · To raise awareness of environmental issues and identify local actions that Scouts could

undertake. · To support NSOs and encourage them to take an active role in developing environement

education programmes and adopt the World Scout Environment Programme of WOSM. · To establish a network of potential leaders who can lead, monitor, and evaluate the

environmental activities in their countries and share information on existing partnerships in environment.


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___________________VENUE________________

Sandakan is the second-largest city in Sabah, East Malaysia. It is located on the east coast

of the island and it is the administrative centre of Sandakan Devision and was the former capital of British north Borneo.

Sandakan is known as the gateway for ecotourism destinations in Sabah, such as the

Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, the Rainforest Discovery Centre, Turtle Islands Park, Kinabatangan River and Gamontang.

Sandakan is considered as the second most important port, after Kota Kinabalu. The port is

important for palm oil, tobacco, cocoa, coffee, manila hemp and sago exports. It is one of the most bustling towns in East Malaysia. The one dominant timber industry is now relatively small. It is likely tourism will be come increasingly important to the town’s future.

The workshop was conducted in the Swiss-Inn Waterfront in Sandakan, Sabah


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________RECOMMENDATION COMMITTEE_______

Mr Eilif Wang, Scouts of China Chairman

MohammadAminulIslamBangladesh

CarolynPhillipsSingapore

RohaniMalaysia

JerryJunaidiBruneiDarussalam

EmmanuelAtinMalaysia

DatuMohdUzairMalaysia


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_________________RECOMMENDATIONS__________

Recommendations for APR:

· Encourages and supports NSOs to take an active role in developing environment education programmes and share these programmes with other NSOs in the region;

· Encourages NSOs to endorse the establishment of the recommendations committee as a team to follow up all environment activities in the region between 2012 workshop and 2013 workshop,

· The workshop suggests that the next environment workshop in 2013

to be hosted by Scouts China in Taiwan.

· Provides format for reporting NSO activities in relation to the environment that APR can publish regularly on the website,

· Gives recognition to the top two NSOs that are actively involved in

environmental work by sponsoring two members at the next environment workshop.

Commitment of NSOs

· Provide details of World environment activities to the APR Secretariat.

· Regularly exchange materials produced locally in implementing the

WSEP or other environmental programmes (minimum 1 quartely)

· Continue to set up an environmental committee in their NSO

· Provide training to leaders in delivery of the WSEP tailored to local NSO needs.

· NSOs are highly recommended to register and have an action plan to

be involved in ‘Clean Up the World’ in September 2012 Adoption of World Scout Environment Programme by NSO

· NSOs commit to the adoption of the WSEP, and appoint a WSEP coordinator.

· NSOs are encouraged to incorporate WSEP into the NSO youth programme.

· NSOs to establish accreditation of SCENES in their country · NSOs commit to adopt the action plan of their participant within a

year, by 7th June 2013

Networking among NSOs on environment aspect

· Establish social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter account for the environment network.

· NSOs are recommended to send the programme coordinator and/or

scouter delivering WSEP for the next workshop.


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· Ensure the NSO responds to correspondence in 7 days.

Gathering of resources for the implementation of WSEP:

· Translation of WSEP into local language.

· Environment coordinator gathering and send to APR more different type of the activities run at NSO level, which allow across sharing with the other NSOs.

· Develop culturally relevant resources. Partnership

· NSOs are encouraged to share information on existing partnerships (objectives, programmes, monitoring, reporting etc)


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__________________APR Initiatives on Environment Education Abdullah Rasheed, Director Regional WOSM/APR OBJECTIVE OF THE SESSION:

1. Understand the Mission of Scouting, in relation to Environment. 2. Explain the references to World Conference Resolutions related to

Environment, 3. Explain the inclusion of environment as a Focus area under the

Strategic Priority-Community, in the APR Plan. Mission of Scouting:

Mr. Abdullah Rasheed highlighted the Vision 2013 of the World Organization of the Scout Movement/ Asia-pacific Region focusing on the environment. The APR envisions for 2013 a Scout Movement in terms of Environment that:

· Helps protect nature and environment; · Provides a safe environment for young people; · Contributes to community and national building.

Mr. Abdullah Rasheed insisted to strengthen the collaboration between World Scout Bureau and all NSOs of the Region. Some actions have been done so far for the World Scout Bureau as:


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· Promote World Scout Environment Badge by: - Circulating a circular to the NSOs (Regional circular 11/2010 dated 15 July

2010). - Four (4) additional NSOs adopted the WSEP in 2011, in conjunction with the

Indonesia workshop. - Eleven (11) NSOs adopted WSEP within APR up to now.

· Collect information on Environment activities of the NSOs and publish them on the APR

website: - Seven (7) NSos best practices collected during Indonesia 2011 workshop and

included in the workshop report.

· Organize a regional seminar on Environment and Biodiversity: - 1st environment workshop organized in June 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia, with

44 participants, 19 overseas from 10 NSOs, - 2nd Environment workshop in Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia in june 2012, with 48

participants from 12 NSOs, 16 overseas.


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_______________________Biodiversity & Conservation by: Maria Lourdes Lardizabal University Malaysia, Sabah

In her presentation, Miss Maria Lourdes focuses on the importance of biodiversity that the world has and the challenges that the world is facing now in terms of conservation. Definitely, biodiversity provides invaluable life support services raw material resources and cultural necessities ranging from recreation to spiritual. In addition, they are literally economically pricelss She outlined the following points:

1- Definition of biodiversity:

‘it refers to the variety of life, includes the diversity of ecosystems, species and genes, and the ecological processes that support them’. Miss Maria started her presentation by the definition given by United Nations on Biological Diversity, 1992. She categorized the levels of biodiversity into 3 levels: A) Genetic (variation between individuals of the same species), B) species (variety of species in a given region or area) and C) ecosystem (communities of plants and animals, together with the physical characteristics of their environment, interlinked together as an ecological system). According to Science Daily Magazines 2011, the estimated number of species is 8.7 million and 1.2 million is the total described and cataloged.

Species category Estimated number Total described and cataloged

Animals 7,770,000 953,434

Plants 298,000 215,644

Fungi (moulds & mushrooms) 611,000 43,271

Protozoa 36,400 8,118

Chromista (brown algae, diatoms, water moulds)

27,500 13,033

Total 8.7 million 1.2 million

As humans expand and become more numerous, we are faced with even more pressing needs to conserve and protect diverse ecosystems. It is widely appreciated that “biodiversity is good” and that ultimately, human wellbeing and persistence will depend on our ability to preserve it for future generations. Thus, the services that biodiversity provides are so many


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Benefits & services Ecosystem functions Examples

Gas regulation Regulation of atmospheric chemical composition

CO2/O2 balance

Climate regulation Regulation of global temperature, precipitation, & other climatic processes

GHG regulation

Disturbance regulation Ecosystem responses to environmental fluctuations

Flood control, drought recovery, storm protection

Water regulation Regulation of hydrological flows

Provisioning of water for agriculture (irrigation) or industry (i.e. milling)

Water supply & purification Storage, selective filtering & retention of water

Provisioning of water by watersheds, reservoirs & aquifers; soil percolation

Erosion control Retention of soils within an ecosystem

Weathering of rocks & accumulation of organic material

Soil formation Soil formation processes Weathering of rocks & accumulation of organic material

Nutrient Cycling Storage, recycling, processing & acquisition of nutrients

N fixation, P & other nut cycles

2- Need conservations: Miss Maria focused on the importance of the conservation and the protection of areas, which designated by national authorities as scientific reserves with limited public access, national parks, natural monuments, nature reserves or wildlife sanctuaries, protected landscapes, and areas managed mainly for sustainable use. Also, she highlighted the marine areas, unclassified areas, littoral areas, and sites protected under local or provincial law are excluded because the Malaysia has total of land 18%.


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_________________World Environment Day Activities

The day began for the participants with demo of practical environmental activities at the Sandakan Scout Nature Park, to understand better the environment we live in. Activities among the workshop participants included those which could be played among children for them to feel and admire the beauty and textures of natural trees, and looking at the possibilities of creative use of natural materials which otherwise could be treated as waste.

For the 400 campers from Sandakan who had gathered at the same nature Scout park as a

pre-camp of the Sabah centenary Jamboree, the day began with sessions on environment education in Scouting to understand environmental problems and ways of reducing these problems with proposed actions, facilitated by Dr. Arbaat Bin Hassan, Senior Lecturer of the Sultan Idris Education University in Malaysia and a long time scouter who had worked and produced many materials on environment education. He also covered common environment activities among Scouts involved in conservation work which includes tree planting, recycling of waste materials, beach clean up, campaign for reducing of the use of plastic bags, garbage disposal, pollution and forest deforestation and afforestation.

The issue of Climate Change and the role of young people was the session for the participants facilitated by Mr. Jupiri Titim, Sabah Forestry department of the State of Sabah, which was befitting for the day to mark the world environment day which preceded the formal launching of the world environment day the National Scout Chief Commissioner of Malaysia Dato Shahurum. The State Chief Scout Commissioner Dato Awang Zaini, welcomed and highlighted on the mangrove reforestation project done by the Sabah Scouts being shared among all the participants with a video presentation of the work done in the recent past.


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On behalf of the Asia-Pacific Regional Scout Committee, first Vice Chairman Dr. Mukhyuddin bin Sarwani congratulated The Scouts Association of Malaysia, The Scouts of Malaysia Sabah State in particular, for organising this World Environment Day Programme in conjunction with the APR workshop on Environment Education in Scouting. He said, “our founder has foreseen the importance of taking care of nature. It is a reciprocal situation where nature will take care of mankind if it is taken care of. Nature study is one of the key activities in

Scouting even at the time Scouting started and the Scouts have stressed the importance to take care of its surroundings”.

He further said, “I am glad that the Asia-Pacific Region is encouraging and supporting the NSOs to join the WSEP and to integrate environment education with the Scout programme and share these experiences with other NSOs. On this World Environment Day, we look back at the American Cree Indian Proverb “only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. ”

On the occasion of the Environment day, each participating NSO representative planted a skyfruit at the Sandakan Nature Scout Park. A skyfruit tree or biologically known as Swietenia tree has medicinal and nutritional properties and a large number of uses, which was discovered in 1996 by famous researcher Dr. Larry Brookes


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_____________Climate Change and the Role of Youth By Jupiri Titin

Sabah Forestry Department

Climate Change is another crucial phenomenon that is facing the world as well the human. Mr Jupiri has dealt with this environmental issue by defining it, listing the causes and effects, its impact on the biodiversity and the most important point is to combat Climate change mainly by youth and young people since they are the future of the world. Mr Jupiri refers the term ‘Climate Change’ to Global Warming, which refers to an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth’s surface, which can contribute to changes in global climate patters. However, rising temperatures are just one aspect of Climate Change. Mr Juripi raised a point that the increase of the temperature will have significant impacts on human health, economic activities and national security among others. The 2007 report of the Intergovernmental panel on Climate Change states that global warming is unequivocal, that is due to anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases that are forcing global climate changes including warming, rising sea level, and declining snow cover. Because CO2 and other green house gases have long half-lives in the environment, the people are already committed to significant warming in the coming decades even if we were to stop emissions now.

After stating the main causes and the impact of the Climate Change, Mr Juripi recommended that the youth participation is this issue is very important. As first step, the youth should have awareness about Climate change through organizing different types of events like tree planting, essay competition, seminar, symposium etc. Then, they could be servants of the society, where they live and organizing week of voluntary events to educate young people on climate change and to discuss what can be done to make a difference. Also, they should know the concept of sustainable development and to drive people towards energy saving innovations, recycling schemes and to adopt a low carbon life style.


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____________________________WSEP & SCENES__________

By: Farouk Bouraoui WOSM- APR

The presentation provided a general overview of the World Scout Environment Programme

with emphasis on the principles and aims for environment education in Scouting, the World Scout Environment Badge and SCENES. The aim of the presentation was to encourage National Scout Organizations to adopt the World Scout Environment Programme and to provide support to those National Scout Organizations that have already adopted the programme.

This presentation was made available to the participants after the workshop. A question and answer session was used to discuss specific points raised by the presentation. This generated discussion amongst the participants on issues relating to the World Scout Environment Programme including examples of the practical application of the programme. The workshop provided a valuable opportunity to gather together National Scout Organizations at different stages in the application of the World Scout Environment Programme as well as SCENES. This enabled discussion of

experiences, challenges and opportunities to take place. The attitude of the workshop participants was of positive action for environment education and as a result of coming together and sharing their experiences and ideas, the Asia Pacific Region has a strong environment action plan to take forward for the benefit of Scouting.


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_______________________Environment Partnerships

Kalaimani Supramaniam ENO

Scouting does not exist in isolation; it is part of the community and it needs to work in partnership with others, from individuals to organizations and institutions at local, national and world levels (The Strategy of Scouting). Mr Kalaimani highlighted the importance of the partnership in Scouting at all levels, and all participants were interested to know how to link, to develop and to sustain the partnership of their NSOs with other partners mainly the environment partners. According to his experience with ENO, Mr Kalaimani insisted on the importance of the Marrakech Charter that was the main source of this concern, because it states that development education (including peace education) and community involvement need to be integrated into Youth Programme particularly the progressive training scheme. To implement the partnership, it is important to:

· Identify the needs and aspirations of the youth people in each community; · Involve the young people in all stages of the partnership activities, and · Consider the patrol as a basic cell.

Mr Kalaimani presented all the projects, which were implemented in collaboration with ENO and other environmental organizations.


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________________________NSOs Presentations NSO name: The Singapore Scout Association

Title of the presentation: Integration of Environment Education in the program By: Carolyn Phillips Outline of the presentation:

· Scouting and Environment · Proficiency and Campaign badges · Coservation programmes · Scouts of the World · World Scout Environment Programme.

NSO name: Bangladesh Scouts Title of the presentation: Environmental activities of Bangladesh Scouts By Mohammad Aminul Outline of the presentation:

· Tree planting · Sanitation · Nature Observation Centre · Economy stove · Wild life conservation · Cleaning & trash disposal

NSO name: Scouts of China Title of Presentation: By Eilif Wang Outline of the presentation:

· Connect WSEP with NSO Programme · Potential SCENES in Taiwan · Challenges faced

NSO name: Scout Association of Hong Kong

Title of Presentation: Environment Education in Scouting in Hong Kong. By : Hin Man Mak Outline of the presentation:

· Introductory on Hong Kong Environmental Badges & Programme · WSEP

NSO name: Gerakan Pramuka, Indonesia Title of Presentation: The role of Gerakan Pramuka in Environment Education By Dr Bambang Sardjono Outline of the presentation:

· Country background · Biodiversity and waste management Program · 4R: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Replant · adoption of the waste management program in Kalimantan Province · SCENES in Indonesia · Planting Mangroove


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NSO name: Persekutuan Pengakap Malaysia Title of Presentation (Movie):

- Go GreenBaku - Rainforest Challenge

Documents

EE Workshop 2012 Report