ABOUT
Halton HELPs

Halton HELPs.org is a Healthy Environment Leadership Project intended to showcase the numerous projects in our community aimed at improving our environmental health. This website will also endeavour to provide resources and support for those trying to improve the health of the community.  

This site is being developed by Catherine Kavassalis and is an extension of her Master's Thesis Creating a Community-Specific Environmental Education Website. 

The Educational Platform

Environmental education is based on the fundamental belief that people need to learn about the way the environment works: the interrelatedness of ecosystems, the interdependence of living organisms and nonliving matter that make up the earth, and the role that people play within this complex system. The way we view our environment is learned. It is a cultural perception. For many centuries the earth was considered by many to be an endless resource at man's disposal. This view is changing through a recognition that the earth's resources are not endless and people are far more dependent on the health of the environment then they once thought. But patterns of behavior and belief are slow to change and it is only through education and learning how to think critically about the issues that we can hope to make positive choices for the future.

In 1977, UNESCO sponsored the world's first intergovernmental conference on environmental education in Tbilisi in the Soviet Union. At this conference the Tbilisi Declaration was adopted. This declaration established the following three objectives for environmental education:

• To foster clear awareness of and concern about economic, social, political, and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas;
• To provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment, and skills needed to protect and improve the environment;
• To create new patterns of behavior of individuals, groups, and society as a whole towards the environment. (UNESCO. 1978 Final Report, Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education. Organized by UNESCO in cooperation with UNEP. Tbilisi, USSR. 14-26 October, 1977. UNESCO ED/MD/49.) 

HaltonHelps.org is intended as a community resource that will increase awareness about local issues, encourage dialogue and draw people together to find solutions for problems threatening the environmental health of the community. Working together, we can learn how to support a biologically diverse community. 

Link to Tree Protection Legislation 1 and 2

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Site Under Construction