Earth Day, which this year falls on 22 April, is an event that originated in 1970 and has become global since 1990, now involving more than 190 countries. This is the result of the sudden kindling, in the leading country of contemporary industrial development, the United States of America, of an environmental awareness, which had already found a fundamental and poetic expression in 1962 in Rachel Carson‘s book, Silent Spring, an essay that is still worth reading.
The American politician Gaylord Nelson, Democratic Congressman from Wisconsin, in the climate of contestation of the American political, economic and social model, due to the Vietnam War then in progress, had the idea of a day in which to denounce the devastating effects of western productivism on the environment around us: Nelson then found in the environmental activist Denys Hayes the personality to whom he entrusted the Earth Day campaign, which, according to uncontested estimates, involved as many as 20 million Americans in its first edition.
Today, the event is part of a very different climate: the concepts of environment and sustainability are repeated so obsessively as to be trivialised. At the same time, the phenomenon of greenwashing, i.e. the desire to give oneself an environmentalist virginity at all costs, has become widespread, even in particularly sophisticated forms; not to mention phenomena such as the brand new geo-engineering, which, advertised in terms of sustainability, pays no attention to the delicate balance of ecosystems, in the name of technological applications linked to very strong economic interests.
This year, in particular, Earth Day organisers emphasised the importance of education and training in building individual environmental awareness: ‘Climate and environmental literacy, combined with strong civic education, will create jobs, build a market of green consumers, and enable citizens to engage with their governments in a meaningful way to address the climate crisis.
It is also for this reason that CLAR, as a third-sector organisation that has been active in vocational and civic education for many years, has organised a specific event this year in collaboration with one of its historical partners, and a historic vanguard of Italian organic farming, the ‘La Terra e il Cielo’ Cooperative of Piticchio di Arcevia (AN). The theme identified is truly fundamental: the fertility of the earth. It is indeed an essential link between environment, climate, food and health – for humans, animals and all living things on this Earth.
On this occasion, CLAR ETS will present the results of the Erasmus Plus 2020 Planet Friendly Schools project, in which it is the only partner in Italy, led by Soil Association, one of the most authoritative organisations that has been dealing precisely with sustainable land and soil management for decades. The selection of the best educational practices on the themes of sustainability and environmental education identified by the 11 project partners at European level will be briefly illustrated.
As you can read in the detailed programme, specialists on the subject will then address the issue of soil fertility in more detail, also to confirm the undoubted successes that organic and biodynamic agriculture have been achieving for years in safeguarding and improving the fertility of our farmland, the basis for the survival of future generations.
