SCIENTIFIC PARTICIPATION

• The WEEC received over 2,000 proposals for papers from 105 countries in response to the call for papers;

• About 730 people were involved with 900 presentations that comprised the official program;

• These papers were presented in different forms: 560 oral presentations covering 11 themes, 58 during workshops, 86 during roundtables, 180 in posters, 25 at the NGO Forum, three of which by Moroccan NGOs;

• The conference was divided into four plenary sessions. In the opening plenary, representatives from major international institutions: UNEP, UNESCO, ISESCO and the FEE were involved;

• Over 25 speakers and international experts participated in the plenary sessions;

• 20 Side Events were organized by national and international organizations such as UNEP, the University of Turin, GIZ Sweep-Net, UNESCO, MIO-ESCDE, Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP), MASEN, the National School of Mineral Industry, ISESCO, etc. in order to communicate and interact with participants on their projects and initiatives related to environmental education;

• Over 31 organizations involved in environmental education and the promotion of sustainable development attended the Associations: All Participants space.

EXHIBITION SPACE

• The WEEC 2013 exhibition space brought together 30 stands. The exhibitors presented to delegates projects and activities focused on environmental education initiated by the various national and international partners and institutional stakeholders;

• The educational activities aimed at promoting good environmental practices mobilized 473 students and their supervisors from the Eco-Schools program, 69 Young Reporters for the Environment and their supervisors from the Marrakech Tensift Al Haouz Academy and 92 regional and provincial coordinators of MEN environment and sustainable development covering the 16 Academies of the Kingdom;

• 13 educational workshops were organized daily by several environmental education facilitators for 80 participating students per day;

• 58 schools in 16 regional academies of education and training in the Kingdom participated in the My Eco-School contest and illustrated the conference logo model with recyclable materials;

• 16 winning schools selected from the 16 Academies presented their models at the Congress exhibition space.

ORGANIZATION

• Over 100 print and audiovisual media organizations supported and accompanied WEEC 2013;

• For the first time at WEEC, an e-newspaper of the Congress was prepared by 11 Young Reporters for the Environment from different high schools in the Marrakech-Tensift-El Haouz region, published daily in 4 languages and available at the interactive kiosks;

• For the first time in Morocco, the Mohammed VI Foundation for Environmental Protection has adopted an approach to environmentally responsible management. To this end, the Foundation conducted an evaluation of this event’s carbon footprint, which reached 3,200 metric tons of CO2. A total of 80% of these CO2 emissions are from transport. To achieve the Congress’ carbon neutrality, the Foundation plans to offset these CO2 emissions by planting 6,400 olive trees in the region of Marrakech;

• Organizational support was provided by about 75 volunteers, including 30 dedicated to the work by the Scientific Committee;

• 200 delegates participated in the side events and activities organized on the last day, 85 of whom completed the educational circuit at the palm grove and were able to discover the field efforts under the framework of the Foundation’s Palm Grove Protection and Development Program;

• This 7th conference marks the WEEC’s 10th anniversary;

• This is the first conference to be held in four official languages: Arabic, English, French and Spanish.