European Students’ Forum dedicated to ending ecocide

Early in November 2012 Polly spoke about ending Ecocide in Europe to around 800 young people at the European Students’ Forum’s (AEGEE) annual Agora in Budapest.

AEGEE was born 27 years ago and is Europe’s largest student association. It promotes cooperation, communication and integration amongst young people in Europe and has working groups which foster environmental protection and human rights amongst many other issues.

Youth in Europe are leading the way to end ecocide. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI); End Ecocide in Europe has been approved by the European Commission. The ECI is being coordinated by a group of European citizens and in order to criminalise ecocide in European territory and Ecocide committed by European companies or individuals abroad, they need to collect one million signatures during the next year.

At the Agora in Budapest, around 800 AEGEE members discussed about the future of the association–including debates on AEGEE’s identity, presentations by the newly appointed Policy Officers on sustainability, and changes to the internal rules–and the future of Europe. In this respect, the role of AEGEE in the new ECI on Ending Ecocide in Europe could not be ignored. Several experienced AEGEE members are leading way as part of the Citizens’ Committee, and Polly’s address to the general assembly will undoubtedly not go unheard, but spark several initiatives at the local level, from the Canary Islands to the Caucasus.

Find out more about AEGEE
Find out more about ECI
Find out about how you can get involved with Eradicating Ecocide.