From December 8th - 12th Thessaloniki was host to the International Conference on Environment and Society: Education and Public Awareness. The themes of this conference encompassed a variety of issues that have been emerging in the last few years in the international arena.

It began with the environmental conference in Rio (1992). As a result of this conference, the UN system was asked to follow through with international consultations in order to debate the issues of economic, social and environmental development. These consultations would focus on sustaining the lives of the present generation and improving the lives of future generations.

There have been a series of international conferences that have taken place in the last 5 years, beginning with the Earth Summit in Rio (1992), the conference on population in Cairo (1994), the Social Summit in Copenhagen (1995), the Fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing (1995) and Habitat II in Istanbul (1996). While these conferences were all on diverse issues, they had a common thread-- sustainability. From population and development, to women and development, the core issue remained - how we live today will effect our future and how our children will live tomorrow.

From these conferences there has been an emerging international consensus and framework for action on sustainability and education issues. The previous conferences looked at the same objectives through the eyes of demographers, women, and so on. In Thessanonlinki, it was looked at from the perspective of public awareness and education. Education was examined through the broadest possible perspective including, formal and informal education, vocational education, life-long learning and education for all. UNESCO, with other UN agencies and the Greek government, are launching a debate on how recommendations of the past major UN conferences will be put into concrete action. Nikos Ninolakis, a UNESCO- EPD (Education, Population, Development) consultant explained that "within a framework of the conference, there are special workshops, position papers and other interventions aiming to suggest possible ways. The innovative practices project prepared by the EPD on how to make all these recommendations into concrete action is one such example."