CEECEC ran a successful event at the biennial conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) in Ljubljana on June 30th, 2009. It began with an introduction to the CEECEC project, including a brief outline of its origins and the presentation of some outputs to date. Among them, a video entitled “Hiware Bazar Millionaires” by CEECEC’s Leah Temper which chronicles the success story of the use of local knowledge and rural employment funds to enhance water harvesting to combat poverty. Set in a village in Maharashtra, India, the video follows a field trip with Supriya Singh of India’s Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a CEECEC partner based in Delhi. A recent report based on a survey by Endemit, another CEECEC partner, on opportunities for ecological economics research in South East Europe based on CSO case studies was also highlighted. Focus then switched to the development of several case studies of environmental conflict and management (Nautical Tourism on Lastovo Island, Croatia; Djerdap National Park, Serbia, and the Environmental Liabilities of the firm UMICORE in Belgium) that together with other studies around the world will form the basis of an online, interactive ecological economics course based on CSO experiences that CEECEC will pilot in March 2010.

The session then shifted gears as two Slovenian CSOs presented environmental conflicts they are working on. In a “live” ecological economics session, Neja Penca of Dark Sky Slovenia, talked about issues of light pollution and recent legislation in Slovenia and in Europe, and Lidija Zivcic of Focus Association for  Sustainable Development discussed her organisation’s concerns over plans for nuclear energy production in Krško and opportunities for transit transport charging in Slovenia under the Eurovignette Directive. The audience of ecological economists present (including CEECEC’s Paula Antunes, Tom Bauler, Peter May, Walter Pengue, Joan Martinez Alier, Leah Temper and Mariana Walter) then joined in an open discussion of how the concepts and tools of ecological economics might benefit these CSOs in their work, and what academic ecological economists could learn from activists.

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* To view the summaries of the Slovenian case studies, click here.

* You can view the slides of the Slovenian case studies in the screen below:

……….° Dark Sky on light pollution.
……….° Focus on nuclear power.
……….° Focus on transit transport charging.

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Conference website: www.esee2009.si