Green Spiders meet in Belgium
From Wednesday 22 September until Friday 24 September, the annual meeting of the Green Spider Network took place – a European network of environmental communicators that is supported by the European Commission.
The principal objectives of the network are the exchange of best practices concerning environmental communication and the ability to respond to environmental communication campaigns of the European Commission in an early stage. It is no coincidence that Belgium was chosen to host the Green Spiders meeting this year: with het Belgian Presidency of the EU, we had the perfect framework for the organisation of this meeting in Belgium. The federal and regional environmental administrations worked together closely for this.
As the year 2010 is also the International Year of Biodiversity, this year's meeting focused on biodiversity campaigns. Several countries showed how they communicate about biodiversity. Belgium too presented its federal campaign ‘Ik geef leven aan mijn planeet’/‘Je donne vie à ma planète’ and the unique national biodiversity project that is run in cooperation with the public broadcasting companies VRT and RTBF (in the form of radio broadcasts, a documentary and a game show).
The social activities were also dominated by the theme of biodiversity: we took the Spiders along on a 'biogeosafari' through Brussels, ending in a dinner at the Natural Sciences Museum (www.naturalsciences.be), where we sat face to face with the dinosaurs.
We spent the second day at the regional environmental awareness centre (Centre Régional de l’Initiation à l’Environnement) in Liège (CRIE de Liège, www.crieliege.be), where the Green Spiders could exchange their best practices with the group and also had to put their best foot forward during the four workshops. We made bio-toothpaste, were steeped in the use of tap water, were introduced to the role of animal actors in the history of nature documentaries and we could take part in a brainstorming session about environmental care at school.
Finally, on day three, the Spiders were sent on a nature perception experience with rangers from the Hoge Kempen National Park (http://www.nationaalparkhogekempen.be), the only national park in Belgium, after a session on the use of social media in campaigns. Because Green Spiders keep pace with the times too!
Further information: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/networks/greenspider/index_en.htm
