The international organistion – Foundation for Environmental Education – FEE, held is 2010 general assembly meeting in province of Shenzhen in China during the first week of July 2010.

Over 60 member countries attended this meeting. More countries are in the process of joining up, the latest to join in include Iran, Ukraine, Kenya and Ghana. FEE today runs 5 main eco label programmes all dealing with sustainable development and environmental education – Eco Schools (in Malta known as EkoSkola), Young Reporters for the Environment YRE, Learning about Forest LEAF, Blue Flag for beaches and marinas and Green Key for Hotels.

The event was hosted by the Centre for Environmental Education and Communications supported by the Ministry for the Environment of the Chinese Government.

In his opening speech FEE President – Jan Eriksen said that the FEE family is growing all the time. It has become the leading organisation in sustainable development and environmental education, making a change in children and citizens world wide. Mr Eriksen said that now it was up to FEE and its international family to push a bottom up approach since the countries leaders failed to reach an agreement at the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change. He compared FEE is the nightingale in the Emperors story with FEE being the ugly looking bird but the programmes being compared to the beautiful song its sang.

In the meeting a full report of the entire FEE Programme was given. FEE reported that it had now three world leading programmes. These where; Blue Flag where this eco label has become the most important and sought label in the world among tourists and beach users when selecting a beach to enjoy themselves. The Blue Flag is a very strict eco label with the international jury made up of world leading organisations such as the World Health organisation WHO, IUCN, UN, EU etc. Blue Flag is about bathing water quality standards, health and safety on the beach, beach management and of course Information and education on the beach.

Another programme that has now made it as a world leading label is the Green Key. This is an eco label for Hotels. Hotels that, run in an environment friendly manner, involve their staff and guests in the process and, operate in a sustainable manner achieve the Green Key label status. The programme has now exceeded the EU Flower and the Green Globe Eco labels. Fee also reported that big chains of Hotels are now asking FEE if it can certify its hotel chains world. Big Hotel chains are now realising that this label is attracting more and more international visitors. Cyprus reported that it hope to have all its top Hotels with the Green Key label before it takes the EU presidency. This will make it possible for all meetings to be held in Cyprus to be organised in Green Key Hotels.

The third programme is Eco Schools that has now reached over nine million schools children world wide. The programme focuses on empowering children to take the lead in bringing about a change for the benefit of their future. Eco Schools has been so successful that it has even attracted various international sponsors such as Toyota, HSBC International etc.

The other two programmes are also achieving success and popularity with LEAF now attracting Panasonic International who is also supporting the LEAF Programme by planting thousands of trees worldwide to aid in the climate change issue. FEE is also looking into introducing other programmes such as Eco Community 21 which has already achieved success in countries like Portugal and The Netherlands and the Green Homes.

During the opening event all country representatives planted a Tree as part of the FEE CO2 offset travel campaign. Mr Vincent Attard – NTM Executive President as FEE Malta representative also planted a tree as Malta in the Evergreen resort at Shenzhen.

FEE International thanked all its sponsors for the faith they showed in this international organisation and all the member countries through their respective NGOs for the success they have been achieving in their countries and pushing forward Environmental Education and sustainable development

Nature Trust (Malta) is today is running three of the five main programmes – these being Ekoskola, YRE and Blue Flag. It is hoped that in the near future other programmes are introduced if sponsors are found.

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