On June 3, 2021, Law No. 27,621 for the Implementation of Comprehensive Environmental Education in the Argentine Republic (hereinafter “the Law”) was published in the Official Gazette.
The purpose of the Law is to establish the right to comprehensive environmental education as a national public policy in accordance with the provisions of Article 41 of the National Constitution and in accordance with the provisions of Article 8 of the General Environmental Law No. 25,675; Article 89 of the National Education Law No. 26,206; and other related laws.
The Law establishes that environmental education, understood as a permanent, comprehensive, and cross-cutting process, must be based on the following principles:
- Interpretive and holistic approach: Adopting an approach that allows for understanding the interdependence of all the elements that make up and interact in the environment, in order to arrive at critical and decisive thinking in the management of environmental issues and problems, the sustainable use of environmental goods and services, the prevention of pollution, and comprehensive waste management.
- Respect and value for biodiversity: In the sense of counteracting the threat to the sustainability and durability of ecosystems and cultures;
- Principle of equity: It must be characterized by promoting equality, respect, inclusion, and justice as constitutive elements of social relations and relations with nature;
- Recognition of cultural diversity; the rescue and preservation of indigenous peoples’ cultures: It must contemplate democratic forms of participation in the various ways of relating to nature, valuing different cultural models as an opportunity for growth in understanding the world;
- Citizen participation and education: It should promote the development of comprehensive educational processes that guide the construction of an environmental perspective, in which different knowledge, values, and practices converge in a regional and local awareness of environmental issues, and allow for the promotion of citizen participation, communication, and access to environmental information, promoting global actions applied to the local situation;
- Environmental issues and socio-historical processes: It should consider addressing environmental issues as socio-historical processes that integrate economic, political, cultural, social, ecological, technological, and ethical factors and their interrelationships; the causes and consequences, local and global implications, and their conflicts, so that they become opportunities for teaching, learning, and building new ways of doing things;
- Education in values: It should be based on an educational ethic that allows those who promote learning and those who receive it to construct a way of thinking based on values of care and justice.
- Critical and innovative thinking: It must promote the training of individuals capable of interpreting reality through approaches based on multidisciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity, and the incorporation of new techniques, models, and methods that allow for the questioning of current models, generating possible alternatives.
- The exercise of the right to a healthy environment: This must be approached from a rights-based perspective, promoting the right to a healthy, balanced environment that is suitable for the human and productive development of present and future generations, in relation to life, communities, and territories.
In addition, the Law incorporates the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education as the main instrument of environmental education policy throughout the national territory, whose objectives are:
- To promote the elaboration and development of the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education and the Jurisdictional Strategies for Comprehensive Environmental Education and their operational implementation, guaranteeing the creation and existence of a specific programmatic area;
- To achieve the widest possible territorial, social, and sectoral coverage at the national level and to promote the Jurisdictional Strategies for Comprehensive Environmental Education together with mechanisms for social consultation and inter-institutional management, ensuring the systematic, coherent, continuous, and sustainable management of environmental education;
- Create a repository of comprehensive environmental education experiences accessible via computerized procedures over the Internet;
- Generate and manage mechanisms that facilitate systematic compliance with the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and/or those agreed upon in the future;
- Promote consensus that guarantees long-term sustainability for the prevention and control of processes that are likely to cause predatory and irreversible environmental impacts;
- Promote Comprehensive Environmental Education programs in the training of national, provincial, and municipal public administration agents and technical assistance to government sectors that require it, for the development of their programs and projects within the framework of the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education;
- Intergenerational environmental commitment: It is established that, in order to celebrate World Environment Day each year and with the aim of strengthening society’s commitment to the environment, each jurisdiction shall promote a community action that fosters “Intergenerational Environmental Commitment” in which, in different areas of society, children, young people, older adults, government officials, and indigenous peoples, with effective participation, have the opportunity to establish a pact of responsibility with the environment and future generations. Each jurisdiction shall determine the manner of implementation in the educational agenda of at least one day or space for institutional improvement dedicated to environmental education and shall duly publicize the activity, its participants, and the awarding of the corresponding mentions for participation.
With regard to the authority responsible for enforcing the law, it is established that the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education is a shared responsibility, with differentiated powers and competences, between the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and the Ministry of Education, as regulated by the General Environment Law, 25,675; the National Education Law, 26,206; in coordination with the Federal Council for the Environment (COFEMA) and the Federal Council for Education (CFE).
In addition, it is indicated that both the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of the Nation and the Ministry of Education of the Nation, provincial jurisdictions, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, and the Federal Council for the Environment (COFEMA) will have the power to implement the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education and the Jurisdictional Strategies for Comprehensive Environmental Education in the areas of non-formal education, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and the media, as established in Article 103 of Law 26,206.
The National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education will be implemented through permanent interministerial, interjurisdictional, and intersectoral coordination, via the Executive Coordination of the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education, assisted by an Advisory Council made up of civil society organizations.
In this regard, the Law creates the Executive Coordination of the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education (hereinafter the “Coordination”). The Coordination will be responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Law through the following actions: (i) the agreement of guidelines, themes, priorities, and resources that serve to fulfill the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education; (ii) the design of plans and programs with a broad scope in the different jurisdictions, through the various means available; (iii) the development of an integrated system of lines of action, objectives, indicators, and targets with a broad scope in the different jurisdictions, which guide and enable the monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of policies and activities throughout the national territory.
The Coordination will be composed of representatives from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, the Ministry of Education, the Federal Council for the Environment (COFEMA), and the Federal Council for Education (CFE). Each agency will have two (2) permanent representatives and two (2) alternates, formally appointed. The chairmanship of the Coordination will be held on a rotating basis by representatives of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and the Ministry of Education, with a rank no lower than National Director.
The Law recommends that the Provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires create the Coordination in their jurisdictions as a forum for the management, coordination, and implementation of the Jurisdictional Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education.
On the other hand, the Law creates the Advisory Council for the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education (hereinafter, the “Council”), whose function will be to assist and advise the enforcement authorities in the implementation of the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education. The Council may be convened ad hoc by the Coordination virtually or in person. It shall express its opinions in writing and its minutes shall be signed by the member institutions and shall be reliably communicated to the aforementioned Coordination as a contribution to the National Strategy for Comprehensive Environmental Education (ENEAI).
The Law invites representatives of the following entities to participate in the Advisory Council: Second-degree organizations representing indigenous peoples; nationally recognized teachers’ unions in public, private, and technical education; representatives of the student and youth sector; representatives of the national scientific sector and different jurisdictions; representatives of national universities; representatives of private universities; representatives of park rangers from the public sector (national and provincial); representatives of private sector park rangers; representatives of recycling organizations; representatives of civil society organizations with a proven interest in environmental education; representatives of the Education Committee, representatives of the Natural Resources and Human Environment Conservation Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, representatives of the Education and Culture Committee, and representatives of the Environment and Sustainable Development Committee of the Senate.
It is important to clarify that the members of the Coordination and its Council will perform their duties on an honorary basis or as part of their ministerial, legislative, or organizational responsibilities, and therefore may not receive any remuneration or compensation for serving on these bodies.
Finally, with regard to the right to information, it is indicated that the enforcement authority must guarantee in all policies, agreements, and actions derived from the Law the respect of the rights established in the legal framework created by Law 25,831, Regime of Free Access to Public Environmental Information, and the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Escazú), approved by Law 27,566.
