Just 4 SCHOOLS

The overall rationale for the programme of activity outlined by Just Forests below is to stimulate, encourage and support schools in Ireland with issues of sustainable development through the lens of wood, trees, forests and related issues.

The programme proposed represents an extension of key elements of the programme successfully delivered to date plus a number of logical, creative and practical new dimensions; it builds on the experiences, successes and lessons of the past and seeks to engage with a number of key opportunities that will arise in the coming years.

Specifically, the programme seeks to realise five key aims:

• To highlight the importance of forests (their proper management and appropriate preservation and use) as a means of alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable human development.
• To relate forests and forest products and issues to the Sustainable Development Goals and to illustrate how the Goals are relevant to sustainable development and vice-versa. The objective is to clearly and unequivocally demonstrate the relevance of the forest/sustainable development debate to broader debates on human development in all it’s dimension.
• To build further on demonstrated interest in and engagement with the Just Forests agendas at a variety of levels – in schools and education generally, in public services such as libraries and community centres, in professional organisations such as the T4 Teachers Association, the Royal Irish Architects Institute etc.
• To encourage and support action for change around the sustainable development agenda – change actions that are relevant, practical, deliverable and creative.
• To show how local actions here in Ireland, such as consumerism and public procurement, can be a double-edged sword that has global consequences and may actually contribute to poverty or alleviate it.