“Ecologise education – or we shall all drown”, said Mikhail Gorbachov on 6th 0ctober 2005. The place was Turin, an old, beautiful city, home to the Holy Shroud and to... Juventus football club! The occasion was the last day of the 3rd World Con-gress on Environmental education. Being there as an invited speaker and chair, I can say that the deliberations were very fruitful. My own contribution (“no world peace without sustainable development for all”) was enthusiastically adopted by everyone.

The final speaker on the last day was to be the ex-president of the USSR. Would he turn up or would he not, every one was asking. He did! At 75, Mikhail Gorbachov is swift and agile, with a strong voice and a warm handshake, showing total conviction in what he says, on behalf of his organisation, Green Cross International, a sort of red cross for the environment.

He told us that he came to define and adopt Glassnost, the policy of transparency and openness in Government, after looking at the ecological situation of the USSR in the eighties.

Officially all was well, but secret scientific data revealed that, for example, over 70% of Russian waters were heavily polluted! Hence he stressed the need to educate politicians in the fields where they are to take decisions, and, whatever their ministry, to strive to understand the close relationship between “Man and his natural environment”, a perception he stated, many politicians lack. He pleaded for the dynamic preservation of bio-diversity and of cultural diversity, both the source of richness.

And finally, to the 1,000 educators present in the Congress centre of Turin, he stated that we must “ecologise education” or “see humanity gradually perish”. Although this is what we, the environmentalists of the world, have been trying to do since 1972, the year of Stockholm, Gorbachov has left no doubt in most minds with that statement of his.

What do teachers and students make of this statement?

<B>Dr Michael Atchia from Turin</B>