International Workshop On Island Challenges To Be Held On Samos, Greece

Samos, Greece. Photo © easyshoot / Shutterstock

Islanders and island stakeholders will gather in Greece this October to attend an international workshop on the challenges islands face in regards to waste management and the solutions that should be sought.

The first International Workshop of Island Challenges (IWIC ’14) will take place 1-2 October on Samos and will be co-hosted by the Sails For Science Foundation and the Analysis and Simulation of Environmental Systems Research Group of the University of the Aegean.

Entrance to the workshop is free for all.

Photo © Facebook – ΟΙ ΟΜΟΡΦΙΕΣ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΑΣ ΜΑΣ

Why are Islands an interesting meeting topic?

Europe alone has 362 islands with a unique biodiversity and cultural heritage. This accounts for 3.5 percent of Europe’s population. The rapid globalization brings today new development pressure to once independent island societies. Often, tourism as a major income entails also new challenges to limited island resources. Are these resources applied at its best?

Hence, with such changing lifestyle on islands a much higher influx of waste is generated. Waste management on islands becomes a major obstacle. Accumulated waste on shorelines (such as plastic) and land destabilizes the needed future attractiveness of islands for their development and overall well-being.

“Islands lack not only behind in waste management, but also in their general infrastructure, skilled human resources, and are rather unattractive for first-in-line technology investments,” the organizers of the workshop note.

Overall, this limits islands in the engagement of active sustainable development.

The first workshop of Island Challenges (IWIC’14) aims to highlight the islands issues about solid waste management as central theme.

IWIC ’14 will gather island citizen stakeholders, local authorities, NGO’s, educational & research institutions, specialists, waste management companies, regulators, and technology providers together.

The workshop intends to promote joint efforts towards sustainable island development by establishing collaborations across all islands through multidisciplinary networks.

The networking event is expected to bring success even closer to the communities on every island.

Keynote speakers of the workshop will include: Michalis A. Angelopoulos, Mayor of Samos, Greece; Linus Pascal Briguglio, Institute for Islands & Small States, University of Malta, Malta; Marie Briguglio, Faculty of Economics, University of Malta, Malta; Rachel Debrincat, SailsForScience Foundation Germany, France; Nikolaos Efstathiadis, Geosynergy & SENSE (Society for the Environment & Sustainability on Earth), Greece; Ilan Kelman, Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, University College London, UK; Janus Søgaard Kirkeby, COWI A/S, Denmark; Ramon Knoester, WHIM Architecture, The Netherlands; Mihail Kritikos, Global Governance Institute, Belgium; Katia Lazaridi, Harokopio University, Greece; Demetris F. Lekkas, University of the Aegean, Greece; Robert Read, Lancaster University Management School, UK; Sevastianos Roussos, Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Écologie marine et continentale (IMBE), France; Guillermo San Miguel, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain; Andy Schroeder, Island Trails Network, USA; and Sven Wagner, SailsForScience Foundation, Germany.

For more information and the program of the workshop, press here.