August 11, 2012
34th International Geological Congress (Brisbane, Australia) finished. The Brisbane IGC attracted 6012 delegates from 112 countries – a terrific outcome considering the economic challenges currently facing many nations, and the long distance the majority of delegates had to travel to get to Brisbane. As in previous IGC’s, the Brisbane Congress had a strong Technical Program that included 3232 oral and 1469 poster presentations covering the full contemporary geoscience issues, as well as 5 Plenary Session in which leading geoscientists from around the world gave new insights into a range of important topics facing modern society. There were 24 Professional Development Workshops, 29 multiple-day field trips.
16 oral and 3 poster presentations were presented in Symposium 4 “Geoethics” convened by Vaclav Nemec (Czech Republic), Jesus Martinez-Frias (Spain), Nataliya Nikitina (Russia), Niichi Nishiwaki (Japan), Silvia Peppoloni (Italy). On August 7, 2012 the official business meeting of the AGID international Working Group of Geoethics has decided to establish a new International Association for Geoethics (see official document).
“The decision of the WG to establish a new Association does not mean to stop further activities of the AGID Working Group. The new Association should recommend to establish some special working groups for geoethics (and ethics) in many associations within the IUGS family (and maybe also in the family of the mining world and elsewhere). Our WG in the framework of AGID can serve as a new model for other associations. Therefore it will be useful to continue also with the AGID Working Group for Geoethics - only with a focus on a new kind of activities” (Dr. Vaclav Nemec). http://tierra.rediris.es/IAGETH/