Mario Delannays
Regional Secretary for Environment
Bío Bío Region
As considered many times by the Bío Bío head of government, Jorge Ulloa, the region is so wide ranging, making it a multi-role area. This means, in a few words, that we can find any type of private or public initiatives, at either industrial, tourism, academic fields, among others.
Considering the latter, it’s fundamental in our region to work strongly on environmental education, helping us have clarity on projects and activities being done, and have a clear vision on what is beneficial for our environment.
“But the paper or the speech can take everything.” To avoid the previous phrase, we have to make efforts and demonstrate with real facts that the strengthening of environmental education is what we want to achieve.
That is why in 2018 we significantly increased the number of sustainable schools certified in the three categories (basic, medium and excellence), reachin 203, surpassing the Metropolitan Region, and doubling or tripling (according to the case) other regions in the country. In this chance, we can feel proud and tell that we are, by far, the region with the highest number of environmental certified schools.
However, what does mean for a school to be environmental certified? It’s simple: each school incorporated, developed and reviewed, in both curricular programs and extra-curricular activities, the concept of environment. A total success!
Besides the former, we are also working strongly on what’s related to Environmental Protection Funds (EPF).
The EPF is the first contestable fund of national reach by the Chilean State to promote environmental initiatives presented by citizens, usually, neighbour boards, sport clubs, parents associations, cultural and environmental groups, indigenous communities and associations, are among human groups applying for these funds.
What does this allow us? It makes people able to learn about care and protection of the environment from a practical perspective. The EPF becomes an ally to turn people’s initiatives into reality, in order to make our country a more environmental friendly place.
Definitely, what we are doing from the Regional Department of Environment wouldn’t have a major sense if our main focus were another one. Environmental education is and will remain a basic, structural pillar, because this is the way we can have a region with the care, conservation, education and knowledge it requires.
President Sebastián Piñera and Minister Carolina Schmidt have urged us to make dissemination of these initiatives with the only aim of preserving, protecting, looking after our environment, and environmental education is key on the success of that mission.
We have a huge challenge ahead, which is tranforming new generations into change actors, not just in terms of awareness, but also habits. Let’s take the first step to define what each person does, starting with the first action, to point fingers on what others have stopped doing for the environment.